


Afterlife

by athena_crikey



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone needs someone to protect, It takes a shinigami to teach a shinigami, M/M, Pre-Slash, Scheming, Secrets, Slow Burn, Soul Society Redux, even an x-shinigami, h/c, lots of guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: The first hollow Ichigo meets kills his mother. The second kills him.This is what happens after.





	1. All Is Not Lost

It’s Yoruichi who tells him. He remembers it plainly, later on. The fragrant scent of his tea mingling with the smell of musty tatami; the sound of cicadas chirping outside; the porcelain smoothness of his tea cup. She’s only just arrived, ushered in by Ururu who was bemused to see a black cat appear on the premises, and even more bemused at her boss’s pleased reaction. 

But Yoruichi is anything but pleased. He can tell at once from her posture, the stiffness of her shoulders and the way her tail is held downwards as if ready to charge. They go into the back room to talk, Urahara bringing his newly-brewed cup of tea with him. 

“It’s Isshin’s son,” says Yoruichi, cutting right to the quick as always. “He’s dead.”

It shouldn’t be a blow. He’s only met the boy once, when he was a babe in arms and Masaki brought him to the store. His hair had been a bright shock of orange, his face chubby, his tiny fists waving in the air. Masaki had been glowing with pride, even more beautiful than when Urahara first met her. But Isshin had frowned on her visit to Urahara Shoten and the dark memories of the past. She hadn’t visited again. 

He has no reason to grieve for the boy. But he felt himself personally invested in Kurosaki Ichigo’s life – he had, after all, saved his mother and sheltered his father. And the boy had clearly been destined for great things from the beginning. Even on that first and only meeting, Urahara had felt the fiery glow of Ichigo’s power, sure only to grow as he aged. And so despite the fact that he has never spoken to the boy, never even seen him since he was a baby, Urahara feels like he’s taken a mid-level kido to the gut.

“How?” he asks, not bothering to hide his dismay from Yoruichi. She knows him inside and out; he has no secrets from her. 

“A hollow. A Shinigami arrived to deal with it, but she wasn’t able to end it before it struck the boy down.”

“So he is lost, then.” A double blow, a death both of the body and the spirit.

“You had plans for him, I know,” says Yoruichi with a bowed head, the closest she will come to commiseration. Her black tail streams out behind her like a willow-branch trailing on a river. 

“The loss is not mine,” he answers stiffly. And yet, he feels it personally. Such a thing should not have happened. The universe should not be so poorly arranged. It is an affront to logic and reason. 

No one ever said that emotion was Urahara’s strong point.

  
***

He will attend the wake, he decides the day after Yoruichi leaves again (“Bye bye, kitty,” Ururu calls after her retreating form). Isshin will not appreciate it, he is sure. A reminder of the Shinigami and their failures will not be welcome. He and Urahara were acquaintances, then colleagues, then fellow outcasts, but never friends.

He will attend all the same, lurking quietly in the background. Just to see what the boy had become in his 15 years in this world. What he could have been, perhaps. What Isshin and his daughters have lost. 

What even Urahara, perhaps, has lost.

  
***

His route to the wake takes him past the Kurosaki clinic.

The kouden is already prepared in the sleeve of his haori, crisp new bills inside; Benihime (sealed, as always) is in his hand for the reassurance she offers, and the protection. He does not intend to speak to Isshin, but if he is spotted he doubts the former-captain’s reaction will be either favourable or reasonable. 

Walking down the road to the clinic, he feels a tug of reiatsu. Then, suddenly, a blast of it. He pauses, raising a hand to shadow his eyes and squinting into the distance. He wears no hat today, feeling slightly naked without it. It’s a reminder of the old days – not something he wants right now.

Up ahead, a figure in black rolls backwards across the street, sword skittering away from its hand. _Poor form_ , thinks Urahara, frowning. The figure gets up slowly, and picks up its zanpaku-to. Only to be blasted back into the cinder-block wall lining the road. By a tall, lanky figure with orange hair. 

Urahara feels his breath catch in his throat. 

He’s rarely surprised, but as he sees Kurosaki Ichigo – no, Kurosaki Ichigo’s _spirit_ – cross the road and kick the Shinigami square in the head, he feels it pour into his veins like ice water. 

He had believed Kurosaki not only dead, but devoured by a hollow. Apparently, his assumptions were only half correct. 

A normal man might have hesitated before stepping forward. But Urahara Kisuke is on another plane all together from normal. 

“Yo,” he says to the boy as he approaches, raising one hand casually in greeting. 

Kurosaki Ichigo turns to him, fists upraised for a fight, and _glares_. “You with him?” he asks, pointing to the unconscious Shinigami even as he looks Urahara up and down. “Because there’s more where that came from. _Much more_ ,” he growls, emphatically. 

“My, how alarming.” Urahara offsets the comment with a smirk. “I have no affiliation with him, or those who sent him.”

“Who sent him?” asks Kurosaki, eyes narrowing. 

“Why, Soul Society, of course. I imagine he is here to shepherd you to the other world. Spirits like yourself don’t belong here.”

Even from here, he can feel Kurosaki’s reiatsu. It’s relentless and pounding, like a waterfall crashing down on rocks. Any hollow would gladly devour him, would make the trip all the way from Hueco Mundo just to make a meal of him. 

“Soul Society. What’s that?”

“It’s where the dead go. The world beyond this one. And it’s where beings like him come from. Shinigami.”

“Shinigami,” says Kurosaki flatly. “Like her.”

“Her?”

“The one who killed the… the _thing_ that got me.”

“The hollow,” agrees Urahara. “They feed on spirits like you, and humans with reiatsu.”

“Hollow.” Kurosaki sounds like he’s rolling the word around in his mouth, getting a taste for it. “I guess so. She killed it before it could get Yuzu and Karin. That’s something.” 

“If you don’t bear a grudge, may I ask why the violence?” he asks, indicating the collapsed Shinigami beside him. Kurosaki glowers.

“He wanted to send me away.”

“Give you a soul burial – send you to soul society.”

Kurosaki crosses his arms. The chain hanging from his chest dangles, links jingling. “Like hell am I doing that. I’ve got things to do here.” 

Urahara raises his eyebrows. “Things?”

“Yuzu and Karin need looking after. So does Goat-Face, if it comes to that.”

Urahara’s face nearly splits into a smile at the title – very fitting for Isshin, he considers. But that’s an acquaintance he doesn’t want to share here and now, so he contains the glee. “You can’t stay here forever,” he points out.

“Not forever,” agrees Kurosaki. “But until Karin and Yuzu don’t need me anymore. This morning…” he trails off, clearly lost in thought of the sight of his family heading for his own wake. Urahara feels an unexpected pang. 

“Their grief will fade. The longer you stay here, the more difficult it will become to leave.” For the moment, he omits to mention the darker fate that might lie ahead. 

“I’ve seen plenty of souls hanging around. Why should I be any different?” He pauses suddenly, looking at Urahara more closely. “Speaking of which – why can you see me?”

“Oh, that.” Urahara whips out his fan and snaps it open, smiling coyly behind it. “That is because I am special.”

Kurosaki looks skeptical. “Special like I was?”

“In a way.” He glances at his watch. “I must go, or I’ll be late.” He doesn’t say for what – doesn’t want Kurosaki to know of their connection. Not now. “If you ever want to talk further, I run a store in Kurogane ni-chome. Urahara Shoten. Feel free to pay me a visit.”

Kurosaki kicks at a stone, arms still crossed peevishly over his chest. “Yeah. Right.”

Urahara waves at him with his fan. “Bye bye.”

  
***

The next time he sees Kurosaki isn’t at the store. He does wait, for a while – patience has always been a talent of his; he has the mastery of a chess prodigy, always waiting for the next move – but when the boy doesn’t show up after two weeks, he takes it in his head to see what’s become of him.

It’s entirely possible that another, more adept Shinigami has come for him. That he has already crossed over to begin his new life in Rukongai. 

But somehow, thinking back to the look of raw, unbridled rage on Kurosaki’s face at the idea of being dragged away from his family before he was good and ready, Urahara doubts the boy has gone anywhere. 

Urahara is not the master of stealth Yoruichi is, but he is more than adept at lurking in the shadows. And with Kurosaki blasting his reiatsu like a heat wave, it doesn’t take long to track him down. Sure enough he’s still around, lingering in the tree behind his house like a fledgling that isn’t quite ready to fly, peering intently into the windows of house.

“You could go in, you know,” says Urahara, stepping out from the side of the house into Kurosaki’s line of sight. The boy nearly loses his balance, clutching desperately at the tree trunk for a moment before righting himself. As though a fall from that height would do him injury.

“You! What’re you doing here?” Kurosaki hollers the words down at him, brash and brassy. 

“I was in the neighbourhood,” replies Urahara, obliquely. He watches Kurosaki visibly consider the merits of continuing this conversation from his current place in the tree. After a moment he steps back over to the trunk and clambers awkwardly down. Urahara waits politely. 

Once on the ground Kurosaki slinks over to the side of the house, avoiding passing directly in front of the large windows that face outwards. “You just happened to be in my backyard,” he says, eyes half-lidded. 

He looks almost nothing like his father. He’s lanky, still growing into his adult frame, and his face is terse and watchful where Isshin’s was casual and open. The result of growing up in the shadow of his mother’s death, perhaps. His hair is a vivid shock of orange, bright as a flame in the dark. 

Urahara produces his fan and puts the end pensively to his lips. “Who can really say why any of us are where we are?”

“Is that your way of admitting to prying into my life?” Kurosaki frowns. “My afterlife, I guess,” he amends. 

“You’re adjusting very well,” comments Urahara. They begin strolling out onto the street, away from the Kurosaki clinic. It’s mid-afternoon and the neighbourhood streets are mostly empty, children at school and parents at work. In the trees lining the street the cicadas are producing a high-pitched, broken wail. Somewhere in the distance, a wind chime is ringing.

“I’ve been around dead people forever. I guess I always knew I’d end up as one sooner or later. Just didn’t expect it to be sooner.”

“Very philosophical.” They take a turn at the corner and head down the street in the direction of Urahara Shoten. “Have you given any more thought to joining Soul Society?”

Kurosaki stops, suddenly glowering. “I told you, I’m not going. Karin and Yuzu are still at home, for fuck’s sake.”

Which explained, perhaps, who he was hiding from. It certainly could not have been Isshin, not with his reiatsu sealed into nothingness. But it’s entirely possible – likely, even – that his sisters have inherited at least some of Kurosaki’s blistering power. 

Urahara bows his head. “It must be difficult for them.”

“Thanks for the understatement.” He starts walking again, looking away. “It’s goddamn terrible.”

“But if you won’t show yourself to them, why stay?” 

“They don’t need to know that their dead brother is hanging around. But that doesn’t mean they don’t need me. What if another one of those things – a hollow – comes back?”

“It would devour you. And then them. If there were no one here to stop it.”

Kurosaki looks at him incredulously. “I’m dead because that Shinigami didn’t stop it soon enough. You want me to trust my sisters to them?”

They’ve come to the quiet lane in which Urahara Shoten stands, its front freshly swept and the faded open sign on the door (Tessai suggested the sign some years ago to promote business. It hasn’t worked.) Kurosaki is standing framed by the alleyway beside the store, alone and vulnerable and yet still concerned only for others. 

Urahara looks at him and doesn’t see Isshin’s son, or the promise of a prodigy, or the boy whose beloved mother died for him. He sees a young man with grit and determination and, most importantly, heart. 

“What if you could protect them?” he asks. 

“How?” replies Kurosaki, instantly. 

“Let me train you. Let me teach you how.”

Kurosaki looks at him intently, eyes sharp and flinty. “Can you?” he asks, and Urahara hears the threat under the words, the promise of consequences if he is lying. But he’s not – he may deceive and obfuscate and parry, but he doesn’t lie. 

“Oh, indeed,” he says. And smiles.


	2. A Complicated Family Business

Kurosaki crosses his arms, face the picture of scepticism. “ _You_ want to teach me,” he drawls, looking Urahara up and down from his hat to his geta. “Teach me what? How to live in a period piece?”

Urahara ignores him. “Once they have crossed over to Soul Society, souls can learn to harness their reiryoku to become Shinigami. This is the normal process. However, you are an exception – you are already strong enough to wield a blade, even before passing over. You could remain here and work unofficially. Of course, it would all be strictly-speaking illegal…” he trails off thoughtfully, one watchful eye on the boy. 

Kurosaki’s brows furrow. “How can it be illegal?”

“Soul Society has its own laws – many of them. Only the ordained are permitted to undertake the duties of a Shinigami.”

“You know an awful lot about all this,” says Kurosaki, suspiciously. “Just who are you, exactly?”

“Me?” Urahara gives a cheerful wave of his fan. “Just a thoughtful shop-keeper! I sell items of necessity for those who come here from Soul Society.”

“But you’re happy to break their laws.” 

“They aren’t my laws.” Not anymore. It’s been over a century since he was charged with upholding them and in that time he has well and truly smashed them. He feels no twinge of remorse. “So what do you think?”

“You can really teach me how to protect Karin and Yuzu from hollows?”

“Yes,” replies Urahara. 

Kurosaki nods sharply, stepping forward. “Then I’m in.”

  
***

“My name is Urahara Kisuke,” Urahara tells him as they walk up to the store. “This is my store.”

Kurosaki stands outside, staring up at the ancient building, still much the same as it was a hundred years ago. “Suits you,” he says, at last. He points a thumb towards his chest. “I’m Kurosaki Ichigo.”

 _I know_ , is what Urahara pointedly doesn’t say. Because nothing tanks a new relationship like _I know everything about you_. And in truth, he doesn’t. Being intimately aware of Kurosaki’s pedigree doesn’t mean he knows anything of the boy. So far all he’s gleaned is that it will take considerably more than wild horses to tear him away from his family.

But he still has to be sure.

“Wait here,” he says, and makes a quick trip inside. When he returns, it’s with Benihime in hand. Kurosaki’s eyes flash to the stick, then back to Urahara.

“You weren’t feeling the Meiji gentleman vibe enough?” he asks dryly. 

“I like to be prepared,” replies Urahara, unhelpfully. “Let’s go.”

“I thought this was your store.”

“It is. But what we seek isn’t inside.”

  
***

Urahara is eccentric. It’s one of his best-known qualities. This is why he has no concerns walking down the street in out-dated clothes, talking to someone no one else can see. When he first arrived in this world to set up shop permanently, he had taken the view that he didn’t give a damn what humans thought of him. In the past hundred years his opinion of humans has increased considerably, but the years of comparative solitude have left him without the ego to give a damn what _anyone_ thinks of him.

“So where _are_ we going?” asks Kurosaki, again. 

Urahara grins. “You’ll find out when we get there. Treat this as an excursion. An adventure! A –” 

“Alright, alright, you don’t want to tell me. _I get it_ ,” replies Kurosaki, suppressively. 

In fact, he isn’t going anywhere – not in particular. He’s looking for something. And he spots it in a back alley behind a busy street. 

The young woman’s spirit is lingering behind a pile of trash, blood running down her face and staining the shoulders of what had once been a white shirt. Her skirt is torn right up to the waistline, exposing a bruised thigh. The chain in her chest is short, but not alarmingly so. Her expression is distraught. 

Seeing her, Kurosaki pauses on the street. He looks from the spirit to Urahara. “She’s like me,” he says, flatly. “Are you recruiting now? Team try-outs?”

But Urahara is serious, Benihime thrumming under his hand. “No. I’m here to show you your other option. Realistically, your best option.” He steps forward into the alleyway, hears Kurosaki following him more slowly. 

The soul looks up as he approaches and backs away, scraping against the alley wall in her terror. “Stop! Stay away!”

Performing a konsou isn’t something he ever did regularly – they’re rarely performed by seated officers, and Urahara graduated from the Academy directly into a seat of the Onmitsukidou. Soothing a lost soul is a skill, but not one he ever acquired. 

“I’m here to help,” he says. 

The soul’s eyes are so wide there’s a clear ring of white around the dark irises; they’re focused solely on him, a low sound of horror escaping her. “No – please – no,” she moans, trying to back away and hitting the wall. 

“This won’t hurt at all,” he says. Even as he unseals Benihime. Her eyes fly to the sword, and she gives a terrified scream. He raises Benihime, her eyes growing wide as saucers – and someone kicks him in the back, hard. 

He felt it coming, of course. But to dodge would either be to impale the soul before him, or to use shunpo. Neither being good options right now, Urahara instead tumbles forwards, catching his momentum and falling into a smooth roll. 

Kurosaki is standing behind him, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes heavy-lidded and glaring. “What’re you _doing_ to her?” he asks, angrily. 

“Sending her to Soul Society.” Urahara stands and dusts himself off. 

“Why?”

He addresses his answer to the female spirit rather than the irate teenager behind him. “Because souls deserve a chance at happiness – not to linger in this world reliving the pain of their death. Soul Society is a peaceful place where you can find a new life. There’s nothing to fear there. It’s a clean start.”

“I will really be free there?” asks the young woman, still cowering away from him.

“Yes. There is no judgement carried over from this world, no pain that crosses the gate.”

“And I’ll never see him again?” she asks hopefully, making it unclear who she is referring to.

“Never,” promises Urahara. The odds, after all, of meeting someone in Soul Society from your past life are infinitesimal. 

She steps forward shakily. “Then I’ll go. I still see him sometimes, walking by, looking in here – _looking for me._ ”

“You’ll be safe in Soul Society,” he says, and raises Benihime. Carefully, he stamps her forehead with the pommel of the sword, and she slowly evaporates into light. When she’s gone, he seals Benihime away again with a wave of his hand. The katana disappears, replaced by his cane. 

“Why did you show me that?” asks Kurosaki. Urahara looks back over his shoulder to see the boy watching him cautiously. 

“Because that is the option you should choose. You would be safe and happy in Soul Society. Far safer than you will be, if you remain here.”

Kurosaki sticks out his jaw. “I told you, I’m not leaving my family. I’ve already died. What else could happen?”

Urahara turns around, eyes hard. “You could be devoured by a hollow, and cease to exist entirely. Or, worse, you could become one. If you do, it could be you who devours your sisters.”

Kurosaki’s arms fall to hang at his sides, his face suddenly white and staring. “What – you never – I could – _what?_ ” the words pour out in a confused tumble. Urahara nods curtly.

“Hollows are spirits who have stayed in the human world too long and lost their link to their pasts. They live only to cause chaos and consume other wayward souls. If you fail to become a Shinigami and insist on staying here, sooner or later it will be your fate.”

“If I fail,” says Kurosaki, latching onto his words with something like desperation. Urahara inclines his head.

“The training is dangerous. It could provoke your transformation to a hollow. That is why would be far safer just to accept your passage to Soul Society.”

It’s not an offer he makes lightly. Even having just sent the young woman’s soul across the border to the other world could put him on Central 46’s radar. Sending a soul with the reisatsu of Kurosaki’s would definitely raise flags. 

Urahara isn’t so blind to his own motives as to be unaware of why he made the offer. He likes the boy. Likes his spunk and his grit and his commitment to looking after others. He reminds Urahara of his better companions in the Gotei 13. He really does belong there.

But if he won’t go, Urahara will give him the chance he wants to stay here. 

After all, how could he turn down a fellow outcast?

  
***

“This is Kurosaki Ichigo,” he says, back at the store.

Tessai, Jinta and Ururu, lined up in front of the merchandise shelves, take a long look at their boss’s latest project.

“First cats, now dead people?” hisses Jinta to Ururu. She and Urahara both ignore him. 

“Welcome,” rumbles Tessai. “Will you be staying?”

“No,” says Kurosaki.

“Yes,” says Urahara. And, when the boy turns to glare at him, beams. “We have the space, Kurosaki-san. And we can’t have you sleeping on the streets. _Anything_ could happen to you out there.” More like he could happen to anyone – specifically any Shinigami who happen to be in the area. Urahara doesn’t need that kind of headache. “And now, perhaps a snack. Ururu-chan, if you would?”

She bobs her head and disappears into the back. 

Kurosaki turns to look at him. “You employ children?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. 

“Nah. The boss doesn’t pay us,” says Jinta nonchalantly, before Urahara can come up with a suitable answer to that. 

Urahara smiles, putting his hand lightly but firmly down on Jinta’s head and plastering on a smile. “It’s a family business.” A _complicated_ family business. 

“You don’t seem the family type,” comments Kurosaki. 

“The boss isn’t –” begins Jinta, before being scooped away by Tessai and carried away into the store room. Urahara fans himself, expression amused.

“Children. How they enrich our lives,” he says brightly, over the fading sounds of Jinta squawking. 

Kurosaki looks around the musty shop, its shelves packed with goods unfamiliar to humans, its floors kept clean by Ururu’s diligent cleaning rather than the frequent passage of customers. 

“Never noticed this place before,” the boy says, scuffing his feet on the floor.

“Humans rarely come here.”

“But Shinigami do?” 

“When they are in need, yes.” Which, truthfully, is far less often than he needs to break even. It’s resulted in him having to expand into other markets. 

The shoji door leading into the house slides open, Ururu hovering in the doorframe. “Kisuke-san…”

“We can speak over tea and snacks,” says Urahara, stepping out of his geta and up onto the engawa. “You must be hungry?”

Kurosaki’s face pinches up in confusion. “Hungry?” he asks. But his stomach growls, and he puts an embarrassed hand over it. “Guess so.”

“Then come with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want the fic where Urahara's secret revenue stream is developing ladies' cosmetics.


	3. Secrets

Urahara built the house in the late days of the Meiji period, when horse-drawn carriages and phonographs were the norm – as such there was no provision made for things like showers or television rooms. The showers he added in decades later as a necessary convenience; the television he ignored. 

He shows Kurosaki to the large shared space that serves as an all-purpose room. On rainy days they play Monopoly here (Urahara thieves from the bank), and in the summer they eat ice candy and plan their festival visits. Now Ururu has set up a low table and a pair of worn zabutons in the centre of the tatami-floored room. On the table are two cups of tea and a plate of mochi from the store next door. 

Urahara takes his seat and motions Kurosaki to the one opposite. The tea is steaming, its scent smooth and fragrant. Kurosaki drops down in an ungainly slump and reaches immediately for the mochi. It has, after all, been over a week since he last ate. 

“’S good,” he mumbles around the sticky rice paste, and takes a deep swig of tea. Clearly Isshin’s top priority had not been table manners. “Dunno why I’m so hungry.”

“Only spirits with reiatsu feel hunger.” In Rukongai, it had been proof of a soul ready for a greater purpose. Here, it’s nothing but hollow bait. 

“Huh.” He polishes off the mochi while Urahara takes a sip of his tea. 

Something about the boy’s ravenous hunger and lack of manners reminds him of Yoruichi, who was raised a princess but behaved as a pauper. It’s been a long time since they’ve sat here together for no purpose but to enjoy the other’s company, drinking and eating and telling old stories. 

He doesn’t know why a teenage boy should make him nostalgic. 

“Tell me more about this training,” says Kurosaki, wiping his mouth with his hand. Urahara rises to his feet, smiling.

“It would be easier to show you.”

  
***

Urahara, like the Boy Scouts, believes in Being Prepared. He also likes to have a project or two on hand at all times. Together, these two traits prompted him to build the training ground, without anyone on hand to train.

Unlike the training ground in Soul Society, this one has weather. Although there is no day and night cycle, there is a blue sky with clouds which, when he chooses, darken to pour down rain on the dusty terrain, although it does make his water bill skyrocket. 

He stops at the bottom of the ladder and waits for Kurosaki to hop down beside him. The boy steps off the last rung and turns to look at the wide expanse of empty space, populated only by boulders and the occasional crevasse. In the distance, a tumbleweed blows past. 

“Been watching a lot of Westerns, huh?” says Kurosaki, surveilling the landscape with a hand shading his eyes. “What _is_ this place?”

“It’s my training ground. Built just for circumstances like this!”

Kurosaki glances at him. “You planned ahead to train a dead high school student to become a Shinigami?” he asks, voice dripping with scepticism.

“You never know what the new day will bring, Kurosaki-san!” Urahara gestures at the wide expanse with his cane. “This is where you will train. Starting tomorrow.”

Kurosaki’s gaze snaps back to him, voice sharp. “Tomorrow? Why not today?”

“You will need all your strength and stamina. You’re still weak from the past two weeks. Rest tonight. Train tomorrow.”

“I can start now,” insists Kurosaki. 

Urahara turns to him with a razor-edged smile on his lips. “Kurosaki-san. This isn’t a commitment you want to undertake before you are truly ready. We start tomorrow.”

  
***

Kurosaki sulks for a while after they make the lengthy climb back up to the store, but Ururu and Jinta are fighting again and he eventually steps in to moderate and is quickly pulled into their game of combat janken. Urahara leaves him to it and goes to his room to do some preparation.

He’s interrupted some time later by a knock on the door. It’s Tessai, he knows before the door opens, just as he knows the identity of every source of reiatsu in the store. Kurosaki’s is a glowing golden flame. 

Tessai slides the door open, sitting seiza on the other side just as a junior seat reporting to his captain. “You intend to train this boy, boss?” he asks, the low rumble of his bass voice like distant thunder. 

Urahara, seated in front of the low table that serves as his desk, puts down his brush. The ink is still wet on his paper, his brushstrokes messy but legible – a habit ingrained from years of report-writing. “He has great potential, don’t you think?” he asks, looking out the window into the distance. 

“Is it his potential that appeals to you? Or his family?” Tessai effortlessly hits the nail on the head. 

“He’s interesting. I like interesting things,” replies Urahara, sidestepping the question. “The mundane is such a bore.” Neither of them mention that his quests to allay boredom have resulted in some of Soul Society’s biggest near-catastrophes. Urahara dreams on a grand scale, but his failures while also spectacular, have always been containable. “Do you disapprove?” he asks.

“It’s not my place to disapprove of you,” replies Tessai, huge fists resting on the ground, head bowed. 

“Loyal as always.” Urahara smiles, but softly. “I appreciate your support.”

  
***

They give Kurosaki Yoruichi’s room – it’s sparsely decorated as with the rest of the house: tatami mats, a closet, and a small tokonoma with a scroll reading _Brashly Beautiful_ , written in Yoruichi’s powerful strokes.

There’s bedding in the closet and a small shelf with dog-eared books – a mix of Yoruichi’s eclectic tastes: Harlequin romances, Roman generals’ tactics, and age of sail fiction. Bold tales of life, love and adventure, with (between them) plenty of blood and sex. 

Kurosaki takes it all in quickly – there is, after all, very little to see. After a moment he crosses over to the window and looks out to the east at the setting sun. It’s the direction of his home, his family. 

“They’re safe,” says Urahara, moving to stand beside him. Kurosaki looks up at him, expression tight.

“How do you know?”

“In learning to harness your own reiatsu, you can learn to read that of others. Even hollows. We aren’t so far from your home that we wouldn’t sense the appearance of a threat from here. I’ve asked my staff to be mindful of nearby hollows.”

Kurosaki looks back out the window again. After a moment, Urahara pads out and leaves him alone.

  
***

Late that night when the house is asleep, Urahara slips out of his bed and ghosts downstairs on silent feet. In the large main room where earlier this evening they ate dinner and played Life, he bends down and, still silently, pries out one of the tatami mats. Beneath it is a large ring set into the cement foundation. He releases the seal and then pulls the ring. A cement lid rises, revealing a small hollow space.

In it sits the Hougyoku, gleaming darkly even in the absence of light. Urahara contemplates it, and has the sense that it contemplates him back. Truly, he should never have brought something so dangerous into being. 

After a while, he sets the concrete lid back down, then replaces the tatami mat. 

Only now, the hidden space is empty.

  
***

They rise early the next morning, and after a quick breakfast of rice and miso soup they clamber back down the long ladder into the training ground. This time Tessai, Jinta and Ururu come as well.

In the two weeks that have passed since his death, Kurosaki has become familiar with his spiritual form, leaving behind the exhaustion and weight that separation from the body initially brings. But his reiatsu is all over the place, radiating outwards from him in uncontrolled waves. It needs addressing first.

“The first step for you in becoming a Shinigami is learning to control your reiatsu. As long as you’re projecting it outwards at the rate you currently are, you’ll have nothing left to funnel into your power, and will be unable to use a zanpaku-to. You must first learn to control your reiatsu – only then will you be able to channel it into a useful form. Observe.”

Behind him, Jinta and Ururu strap tanks to their backs which were designed to hold pesticides, and pick up the attached hoses. “3 – 2 – 1 – BLAST!” shouts Jinta, and they both turn on the nozzles to spray Urahara with pink liquid. He holds up his hand and deflects it neatly with a blast of reiatsu. The stones behind him that are splattered by the liquid begin to melt. 

“Is that _acid_?” demands Kurosaki, staring. 

“It’s a special formulation! It will destroy inorganic material, while leaving organic material unaffected.”

Kurosaki stares. “…Meaning?”

“Your clothes will melt,” replies Urahara gleefully.

“The fuck,” begins Kurosaki. Just as Jinta and Ururu turn the nozzles on him. “Hey – wait. Wait! _Wait!_ ”

“Better prepare,” says Urahara. He pulls out his fan to direct the stream. “Ready – aim – fire!”

Kurosaki takes off sprinting, Jinta and Ururu right behind him. Pink liquid sprays all over, melting holes in the dusty ground. 

“No, no, Kurosaki-san! Deflect the liquid! Deflect it!” calls Urahara, one hand raised to his mouth to better project his voice. 

“How the hell do I do that?” shouts Kurosaki, slowing for an instant and losing a sleeve to a well-aimed jet from Ururu. “Bwa!” He takes off running again. 

“Focus! See your power and put your arms around it. Hold it tight, and point it where you need it.”

Kurosaki slows again and, like an idiot, holds out his arms as if encircling a large tree trunk. Jinta sprays him in the face. “Not _literally_ , you dork!” 

Kurosaki stomps his foot. But Urahara senses the change in his reiatsu, the shift from chaos towards order. It’s a small shift, but it’s enough to allow him to deflect some of the stream Ururu is pointing at him, which is dissolving the bottom of his pant leg. It splatters on stone instead. 

Urahara nods. “Good! Now tighten your grasp! Grip it with your hands!”

Kurosaki has slowed; the children are approaching cautiously, sensing the change in him. Jinta shoots a spray at Kurosaki’s chest; Kurosaki takes a breath and a pulse of reiatsu flows out, deflecting it. A golden whirlwind starts to form around him, blowing upwards. Jinta and Ururu both release their jets; the pink liquid is completely carried away by the wind tunnel. 

After a minute their tanks run dry, nozzles dropping. The whirlwind dies down slowly, pebbles and dust settling back down to earth, leaving Kurosaki panting. 

“Congratulations,” says Urahara, beaming. “You’ve passed Step One.”

Kurosaki looks up, face haggard. He’s missing a pant leg and most of his shirt, giving him a battle-torn look. “There’s more than one step?”

  
***

“Right now,” Urahara tells Kurosaki, while he regains his breath, “you are an unattached soul. When the chain in your chest disappears, you will become a hollow – this is called encroachment. However, there is another option. Before the disappearance, you may also become a Shinigami. Once you have a taste for Shinigami power, you should be able to mould your own spirit to match.”

“I’ve only met two Shinigami. And I pounded one of them into the ground. No idea what their power feels like, though.” Kurosaki scratches the back of his head. 

“Give me your hand,” says Urahara, holding out his own. Kurosaki pauses, but does as he’s asked. An instant later Benihime is hovering above it, unsealed; she glows a proud crimson. Urahara lowers the blade and knicks Kurosaki’s thumb.

“Ow! What the hell?!” Kurosaki snaps his hand back, licking at his bleeding thumb. 

“Did you feel it?” asks Urahara. “The power imbued in the blade?”

“Power?”

“Close your eyes.” He holds out Benihime horizontally in front of his chest, and feeds her more reiatsu. She glows brighter with a blood-thirsty hunger. “Can you sense it?”

Kurosaki’s brows furrow. “…Hunger,” he says, eventually, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. 

“Good! Now that you know what to look for, you can find it in yourself.” Urahara snaps his fingers and the ground beneath Kurosaki’s feet shatters, dumping him into a square tank full of clear liquid that is sunk into the ground. Kurosaki squawks and begins flailing, struggling to keep his head above water. “The liquid has too low a density to allow you to float,” Urahara says, fanning himself. “In addition, it will eat away your Chain of Fate. You must find your Shinigami powers within yourself by then, or become a hollow.”

“What – but –” Kurosaki’s head sinks below the water. From the side of the tank, the five of them watch him sink slowly down to the bottom several meters below, fighting all the way.

Souls don’t breathe, of course. While Kurosaki will likely take a few minutes to learn that lesson, once he has he’ll be able to concentrate his energy on transforming himself to a Shinigami. 

Urahara wonders whether the boy will be able to remember the tiny fraction of his own Shinigami spirit he shared. If he can’t, he will die. 

And with him, Urahara’s plans for redemption.


	4. Good Intentions

The transformation to Shinigami can take days. Or rather, the encroachment can. Pulling out a Shinigami’s power takes only a second. As they watch Kurosaki sitting on the bottom of the tank trying to channel his reiatsu into the appropriate form, it becomes evident that he won’t achieve anything imminently. 

“Do you really think he can do it, boss?” asks Jinta, squinting downwards. “If he doesn’t…”

“If he doesn’t, he will have to go to Soul Society.” Before he can become a hollow. 

Jinta shakes his head. “He won’t like that.”

“He would like the alternative considerably less,” notes Urahara, expression serious. He hadn’t seen Kurosaki give a lot of thought to becoming a hollow, but his reaction had been sufficiently shocked. Urahara feels the consequences of that transformation were clear to him. 

“I’ll bring some snacks,” says Ururu, and disappears in the direction of the ladder.

They settle down to wait.

  
***

Kurosaki’s power, if anything, becomes stronger as he struggles to transform it. It’s sharper now, more concentrated, but still distinctly human. As the hours pass it continues to blast outwards, the shape of it twisting and changing but not properly.

At the end of the first day Tessai turns to him. “Boss…”

“I’ll stay tonight. You go,” says Urahara. Tessai considers a moment before nodding. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.

  
***

From above, Urahara can’t see Kurosaki’s Chain of Fate, but when he reaches out to touch the water he can feel the voracious hunger that’s consuming the thin tie to his humanity. It’s already much shorter, and growing shorter still.

Kurosaki is still radiating reiatsu, still trying to bend and twist it to fit his memory of Urahara’s power. 

He’s going about it all wrong. It’s not his power he needs to shift, it’s his mentality. But under five meters of water, Urahara can’t tell him that. And even if he could, he doubts it would help. Kurosaki strikes him as the type that has to figure things out for himself.

  
***

Urahara takes the second night off; there’s still twelve hours before the encroachment comes to its conclusion. Alone in his room, he removes the Hougyoku from a sealed box in his closet and holds it in his hand.

There’s no point doing anything with it if Kurosaki can’t become a Shinigami. No other way to wish away the evil he’s done. But he took it out of the downstairs safe because he believed Kurosaki could finish his training – could become a full Shinigami. With half a day left before the boy becomes a hollow, he still believes it. Yoruichi would call it wishful thinking, but Urahara knows it for what it is: cold, hard faith. 

He’s gambling his future on this boy. His salvation.

  
***

With two hours to spare, Kurosaki manages the shift from soul to Shinigami, reiatsu bursting forth and boiling the water. Jinta and Ururu leap back, avoiding the scalding liquid. Tessai and Urahara deflect it, remaining seated by the side of the tank.

“Wow, he actually did it,” says Jinta, peering downwards. He sounds partially disappointed – a failed attempt would have meant a hollow to fight. 

“Naturally,” replies Urahara, smugly. And then: “Drain the tank.”

Tessai pulls a remote control from his pocket and hits a button; the water slowly begins gurgling down a drain in the bottom of the tank. When it’s gone, a soaking wet Kurosaki stands at the bottom in his black shihakusho, looking upwards. 

“Urahara, you _bastard_ ,” he growls. “The hell kind of training is this?”

“You succeeded, didn’t you?” Urahara calls down to him. “Congratulations on completing Step Two!”

Kurosaki groans. “Please tell me there aren’t any more.”

Urahara looks to Ururu, who drops a rope ladder for Kurosaki. The boy has yet to learn how to use his strength constructively, after all. 

“Just one more, Kurosaki-san: Now you learn how to fight.”

  
***

In fact, they take a break for Kurosaki to dry off and have a meal. They all eat, picnic-style, on a tartan blanket spread out for them over the rough terrain by Ururu. The bento boxes are home-made and fresh, put together by Tessai and Ururu earlier this morning.

“You’re kinda crazy, you know,” Kurosaki tells him, around a mouthful of inari. 

“It has been said. But: I get results, Kurosaki-san. And in circumstances far from the norm. Shinigami are born in Soul Society, not here. That is the way of things. My specialty is in exceptions.”

“It’s good to know your methods aren’t the norm,” replies Kurosaki, gulping down some tea.

“No. But they are often more successful.” Urahara pops a sausage carved into octopus shape into his mouth. 

“…Right.”

Urahara finishes off his bento, takes a sip of tea, and looks significantly to Tessai. The former Kido Corps captain looks behind him and produces an asauchi. A monument to potential, it lies currently dormant, waiting for the hand that will give it life. 

“This will become your zanpaku-to,” Urahara tells Kurosaki, who hurriedly sets down his bento and leans forward to peer at the black matte shape. “As you train, you will learn how to release its potential.” 

Tessai hands the sword to him, hilt-first. Kurosaki reaches out cautiously and takes it.

Instantly, the sword blurs, then elongates to a huge length – practically as long as Kurosaki is tall. It’s a display of strength – and lack of control.

“Good. Now we begin Step Three,” says Urahara, rising.

They walk over to a relatively clear area, Urahara stopping when he feels he’s put enough space between them and the remnants of their lunch. He turns and regards Kurosaki.

“There are three elements to any Shinigami’s training: swordsmanship, kido and hakuda. For dispatching low and medium-strength hollows, only one of the three is needed. Becoming proficient in at least two is advisable. Judging by your reiatsu, control is not your strong point; all three arts require control, but swordsmanship is the most flexible. We will start there.” 

Urahara has never trained anyone to fight. He has trained _himself_ over the years and decades, strengthened and perfected his stance and posture and poise. Has raced against Flash Goddess Yoruichi, has sparred with captains in the Gotei 13, has matched himself against the prisoners in the Nest of Maggots. 

But he has never once taught a grass-green rookie how to hold a sword, or place his weight, or learn the knack of leaning into lunges and parries. 

As always, Urahara finds it best to learn by doing. 

“Draw your sword,” he says, and watches Kurosaki fight to get it out of the immense scabbard on his back. He holds out Benihime and, smiling at her singing glee, unseals her. 

“Now, we begin,” he says. And lunges forward.

  
***

Kurosaki obviously has some martial arts training – he knows how to hold himself, and how to control his strokes and feints, how to watch his opponent. But he’s clumsy and over-encumbered, struggling with the huge blade and overbalancing frequently.

He’s nowhere near to touching Urahara, of course, although for the sake of the lesson Urahara keeps his swings and jabs slow and visible, giving Kurosaki the opportunity to fend them off. It is, after all, the boy’s first time with a sword. 

No new Academy graduate would ever be so sloppy, but few of them would equal Kurosaki’s raw power. As it is, he could probably handle a low-level hollow, although perhaps not without taking some collateral damage. It won’t be too long before Urahara can send him out on the streets. 

“You’re holding back, Kurosaki-san,” he says, dodging a heavy-handed swing at his shoulder. “Taking pity on me?” He drives forwards, making a series of lunges that Kurosaki barely dodges. 

“This blade is huge! I could cut you in half,” counters Kurosaki, deflecting a blow at an angle that shoots sparks into the air. 

Urahara smiles a sharp, predatory smile. “If you believe that, you have a lot to learn.” He dials up the strength of his next blow enough to make Kurosaki’s sword vibrate with the power of the strike. “Attack me in earnest, or I will tear you to pieces.” He suits action to word, aiming a jab too close to Kurosaki’s shoulder for him to parry – the boy dodges out of the way, but Benihime bites into his sleeve with a ferocious ripping noise. “The only reward for politeness on the battlefield is death. Hollows do not feel pity.”

“I’m not pitying you,” snarls Kurosaki, catching his next thrust and pushing it back towards Urahara with his left hand on the back of the blade to steady it. “You melted off half my clothes.” He throws off Urahara’s blade and moves in with a strong strike. “You tried _to drown me_ ,” he continues, thrusting forwards. “You could have turned me _into a hollow!_ ” His reiatsu blisters, pushing back at Urahara in time with a strong downwards strike. 

“Better, Kurosaki-san!” He dances out of the way of Kurosaki’s nameless blade. “You’re starting to look like you mean it.”

“I _do_ mean it,” pants Kurosaki, making cut after cut and Urahara’s head. Urahara bobs and weaves, deflecting the occasional blow with his sword. Kurosaki is breathing hard, beginning to falter; Urahara is fresh as a daisy. 

They go on for another fifteen minutes, Kurosaki gradually improving in predicting Urahara’s moves, but losing stamina. Finally, when he slips and falls flat on his ass, sword digging a long row in the earth, Urahara calls it.

“That’s enough for today.”

Kurosaki struggles to his feet. “I can keep going!”

“We’ve done enough for today. You’re exhausted. You can rest now, and return stronger tomorrow.” Urahara adjusts his hat, feeling just the first few drops of sweat on his brow. “Come along. We don’t want you so tired you can’t return to the store!”

Kurosaki’s chin rises as he considers the long ladder climb ahead. “Yeah,” he agrees, after a minute.

“You can have a bath, and then we can have dinner,” proposes Urahara, sheathing Benihime and sealing her. 

“Right,” says Kurosaki. 

It’s an anti-climactic end to Kurosaki’s first day as a Shinigami. But it’s not the end of Urahara’s day.

  
***

Urahara waits for midnight to strike on the tiny rotating pendulum clock in his room. It chimes quietly, the delicate sounding of the bells the only sound in the silent house.

Everyone else has been in bed for hours, all sleeping the sleep of the virtuous. Urahara alone remains awake. Planning – no: plotting.

He slips out of his room, stepping silently on the hardwood in the hallway, passing like a shadow through the house. He stops outside Yoruichi’s room. 

There’s no light; he has come this far by memory – more than a century’s experience of walking these halls. He has lived here through firebombs and ice storms, earthquakes and typhoons. The house is truly his, designed by his hand and built to his specifications. He could never have said the same of any of his dwellings in Soul Society. 

And yet, he misses them. Misses them fiercely. 

But those days are gone and past, and all there is now to think of is the future. 

Urahara slides the door open and stands in the frame, looking at the room painted blue by the soft moonlight. Kurosaki is sleeping on his back on a futon in the middle of the floor, one arm thrown up over his face, his mouth half-open. He looks ungainly, graceless. 

Innocent. 

Urahara slips his hand into his sleeve and produces the Hougyoku. And then, still moving with the silence of an owl, steps into the room. It takes more resolution than he would have thought to cross the floor, takes the strength and assurance of a captain regarding casualties to stare down at the boy. 

But after all, this is for his sake, too. 

Urahara leans down, Hougyoku in hand, and with his other hand activates the Integration. He feels its stony coldness eat its way up his arm, his hand growing black in the poor light. 

He reaches out and without hesitation presses the Hougyoku into Kurosaki’s chest. It nestles into the hollow fashioned for it, and as he withdraws his hand, Kurosaki’s chest closes back over it seamlessly. There’s no trace of the Integration. 

Urahara looks down at the sleeping boy, and considers apologizing. 

But then, is this not for the best?


	5. Sucker Punch

Urahara has always conceived of teaching as requiring an understanding of, or at least an awareness of, relevant pedagogy. He taught when he was the head of the SRDI, instructed students in the scientific method and how to conduct assays and report their findings. 

He doesn’t teach Ichigo – he has no formal knowledge of how to teach one to becoming a Shinigami; that’s the Academy’s job. He trains him instead, stretching with him and sparring with him – showing him not the best way of fighting, but _his_ way of fighting. It occurs to him that, were Kurosaki Ichigo less his own person, he might be in danger of creating a second Urahara Kisuke. But Kurosaki is very far from becoming a copy of anyone, much less Urahara.

For one thing, it’s clear Kurosaki has no interest in the theoretical nature of things. He’s smart and he picks up on instruction quickly, but he doesn’t ask the kinds of piercing yet wistful questions Urahara was known for back in Soul Society (‘How is it that a zanpaku-to reverts if its partner loses consciousness, but not if it’s simply dropped?’ ‘Why should it take 10 years to achieve Bankai?’ and, infamously, ‘why can’t we convert hollows to Shinigami?’). For another, he has a sheer raw power that Urahara came by through years of training, not natural skill. But mostly, it’s his personality. He has a frustrated peevishness that Urahara finds delightful, but it’s paired with a deep commitment that the former captain respects. Kurosaki gets pushed back and pummelled and trodden down, and he unfailingly comes back for more. 

Urahara has always been a willow-branch, bending but never snapping when pressed, and whipping back with all the more strength. Kurosaki is an oak; impervious and unphased by pressure. 

They spar in the training ground for a week, Kurosaki improving along a near-vertical curve. By the third day, he can catch Urahara’s trickier thrusts. By the fifth, he can see swings that would have been invisible to him before. By the seventh, he can deflect them. 

He hasn’t heard his zanpaku-to’s voice yet, hasn’t released the shikai. But after all, it’s only been a week.

  
***

“This is a hollow,” announces Jinta with flair, pointing at Ururu with the bamboo handle of his broom. The young girl has, for the purpose of the role, donned a piece of cardboard strung around her neck with a large black hole drawn on it in magic marker.

Kurosaki stands with his arms crossed, squinting against the bright sun that pours down on them. 

It’s early on a summer Sunday morning, cicadas singing in the trees, the low hum of cars and planes and trains filtering in from the distance. The three of them are outside in the street, Jinta intent on performing his own training for their new resident Shinigami.

Urahara, in the middle of re-stocking the shelves, pauses to watch from beneath the brim of his hat.

“What you do is, you go up to it and slice it right up!” He waves the boom fiercely. Ururu cowers. “No you moron – you’re a hollow! Be scary!”

She blinks widely at him, then raises one hand and claws at the air. “Rarr?” she asks, plaintively. 

Jinta, ignoring this terrible piece of acting, brings down the broom handle. Kurosaki catches it before he can strike her in the head.

“Hey! You gotta hit ‘em in the head!”

“I get it,” says Kurosaki, lifting the boom and Jinta with it to stare the boy in the eye. “You shouldn’t hit girls.”

Jinta wiggles furiously, not letting go. “She’s not a girl! She’s a hollow. You’re gonna get eaten up if you don’t learn.”

“Hit them in the head. Got it,” says Kurosaki dryly, dropping Jinta. 

“You’re _so_ gonna get swallowed,” snarks Jinta. “I’ve met more hollows than you – I should know.”

“Don’t worry, Kurosaki-san,” Ururu tells him sweetly, “If you get eaten by a hollow, I’ll save you.”

Kurosaki glances down at her, rubbing the back of his head. “Uh – thanks.”

Jinta snorts.

Tessai, who has been lingering behind Urahara while his boss watched the interaction, senses Urahara’s interest fading and steps out of the store. Jinta, promptly remembering the chores he’s supposed to be doing, goes back to assiduously sweeping the pavement. Ururu removes her hollow costume (slipping the piece of cardboard over her head and handing it to Tessai) and joins him.

“She really will protect you. If needed,” Urahara tells him, as Kurosaki comes back into the store. The boy gives him an odd look. 

“I’m the one who should be doing the protecting,” he says.

  
***

Although Urahara sells spare batteries and software for cellphones built to detect hollows, he does not need them himself. His senses are attuned enough to pin-point them without electronic intervention. Consequently, when a hollow appears on the east side of town late in the day, he puts down his cup of tea and goes to Kurosaki’s room.

The boy is sprawled on the floor reading one of Yoruichi’s books ( _not_ a harlequin romance, Urahara notes). He appears even longer and lankier than usual – not scrawny, but healthily thin and lean. He looks up at Urahara’s knock. “I thought I had today off.”

“That’s up to you. There’s a hollow on the other side of town.”

“Not near here?” _Not near the clinic_ , is what Urahara hears.

“No.”

Kurosaki frowns, closing the book and sitting up. “Then does it matter?”

Ah. Urahara produces his fan, holding its sturdy shape in his hand. “You became a Shinigami to destroy hollows.”

“I became a Shinigami to protect my family,” snaps back Kurosaki. 

He taps his chin thoughtfully with the closed fan. “So it doesn’t matter if others die? Only your family?”

“I don’t see you out there, fighting hollows. You could have saved me, easy. You didn’t.”

“I’m not a Shinigami, Kurosaki-san. My calling is not to protect souls.” Not any longer. Not with an unfilled sentence from Central 46 hanging over his head. 

Kurosaki crosses his arms stubbornly. “I’m not so generous that I’m willing to protect everyone,” he says. 

“If you choose only to fight to protect your family, how will you gain the experience necessary to protect them?” Urahara asks, trying a different tack for now. “Training alone doesn’t make you competent to deal with real hollows.”

“So I should come with you to learn how to fight?” he asks, still staring up at Urahara. 

“If for no other reason, yes.”

Kurosaki sighs, but stands. “Alright. Let’s go.”

  
***

The hollow has gone to ground in a residential neighbourhood, all short squat buildings sitting on narrow roads. Some of the houses have jugs filled with water positioned along their fences to scare away cats – Urahara knows from experience that this is completely ineffective.

“Where is it?” asks Kurosaki, straightening his immense scabbard on his back and peering around as he steps out of the car. A true Shinigami would travel on foot, but Urahara draws the line at sprinting across town on rooftops. 

“You have to find it.”

Kurosaki frowns. “How am I supposed to do that?”

Urahara opens his mouth to answer, and is interrupted by screaming.

“Never mind!” Kurosaki takes off in the direction of the screams; Urahara trails along at a more leisurely pace. 

When he rounds the corner, it’s to see Kurosaki standing in the middle of an abandoned children’s playground, long rows furrowed in the dirt beneath his feet. 

Towering over him is a centipede-shaped hollow, its mask huge and bulbous, its maw filled with short, sharp teeth. Its tiny legs wave in the air like the ripples of a rug’s tassels as it brags to the Shinigami about the victims it’s amassed, the chaos it’s caused. 

Urahara leans against a tree on the far side of the park, watchful but relaxed. Kurosaki doesn’t seem at all concerned by the confrontation – no trace of sudden nerves. 

“…And no Shinigami can beat me!” finishes the centipede-hollow, rearing up and then whipping its body downwards to slam its razor-edged legs into the ground. Kurosaki rolls out of the way, drawing his sword as he stands. The hollow rears up again, preparing to attack. 

It’s over in an instant: Kurosaki swings the zanpaku-to downwards, slicing directly through the hollow’s head. It screams as it disintegrates, disappearing almost immediately. 

“Huh.” Kurosaki lowers his sword slowly, looking around. “Really? That easy?”

He turns around, clearly searching for Urahara. The former captain steps out from behind his tree, clapping politely. “Well done, Kurosaki-san. Your first hollow.”

“ _That’s_ what killed me?” asks Kurosaki, sounding sceptical.

“Not that exact one,” replies Urahara, sauntering over. “As with everything, hollows vary widely in power and skill. That was a weakling. A strong hollow can kill Shinigami – even a well-trained one. Some of them have killed dozens, and evaded capture for decades. They can be clever, and cruel. Don’t let your guard down.” 

“Right…” Kurosaki sheathes his sword and looks thoughtful. 

“But for now, let’s go home and celebrate. You’ve completed Step 3.”

Kurosaki gives him a look. “What’s that mean.”

“You’re ready to fight hollows.”

  
***

“This is for you,” Urahara tells Kurosaki the next day at breakfast. He hands over a razor-slim orange flip phone.

“Who would I call?” asks Kurosaki, taking it anyway and flipping it open.

“It’s not for calls. It will show you tracking information for hollows.” Another illegal toy – he carries them to support Shinigami, should they need them. Providing Kurosaki with information to find hollows will almost certainly eventually cause him to meet up with whoever this district’s assigned Shinigami is. 

With any luck, it won’t be a smart one. 

Kurosaki puts the phone down on the table and stares Urahara in the eye. “I told you: I’m not fighting hollows. I’m protecting my family. Don’t give me that bull about needing more training – I could have trampled that hollow yesterday without a sword.” 

It had seemed like a successful ploy at the time. But Kurosaki’s not just strong – he’s stubborn. And Urahara, although he has patience, does not have a lot of cards to play. So he pulls out his ace. 

“What about the hollow that killed your mother. Could you trample it?” It’s the equivalent of a gut-punch – a cruel, vicious blow. Kurosaki’s mouth drops, his hands tensing on the table-top. 

“The _hell_ do you mean?” he leans in as soon as he recovers, voice low and tense. 

“The hollow that killed your mother. It’s quite renowned. Very old, very strong. It preys on people with strong reiatsu. Like you. Like your sisters. One of these days, it may be back.”

“You bastard, what do you know about it? About my mother?”

“I just told you: she was killed by a hollow. Killed, protecting you. It was most likely after you.” He lays it all out matter-of-factly, each word like a knife. 

Kurosaki swallows.

“You never realised? Even after one killed you? Really, Kurosaki-san, I expected more of you.” 

In a flash, Kurosaki’s slammed his hands down on the table and leapt to his feet. For a moment, Urahara thinks the boy will try to strike him. But then Kurosaki’s storming out, slamming the door closed behind him. Urahara hears him stomp down the stairs and out the front door. 

The phone remains on the table beside his half-eaten breakfast.

  
***

It’s evening before Kurosaki comes back. The summer sun is still high, the air warm – the children are out playing somewhere nearby and Tessai is out grocery shopping.

Urahara is alone in his room reading when he senses Kurosaki enter the house. He doesn’t move, simply turns a page and keeps reading. A minute later, there’s a knock on his door. “Yes?”

Kurosaki slides the door open and stands in the doorway. He looks surly, eyes fierce and mouth set in a scowl. 

“Did you make me a Shinigami because of what happened to my mother?”

“I made you a Shinigami because you asked for it,” replies Urahara. It’s not a lie – just an omission. 

“How do you know what happened to her? How long have you been watching me for?”

Urahara smiles. “You give me far too much credit. It is hollows I track, not humans.” This is skating closer to mendacity, but he holds the line. “Grand Fisher is the hollow that killed your mother – he’s famous. He’s a Shinigami-killer, and a bold one. And he’s escaped nearly a dozen times. Of course I would take an interest in him.”

“You could have killed him. You could have saved her,” accuses Kurosaki in a harsh, strangled voice.

“I wasn’t there. That task now falls to you. If you will accept it.” He picks up the phone from his desk and holds it out.

After a moment, Kurosaki stalks across the room and grabs it from his hand. He leaves without another word.


	6. Welcome

Kurosaki starts spending his days out of the house, leaving in the morning before anyone else is up and coming home after they’ve all gone to bed. This strikes Urahara as a poor form of protest – he would make his displeasure known much more effectively if he sulked around like a normal teenager. 

The fact that he doesn’t means Urahara’s words hurt him deeper than intended. 

“What did you say to him, boss?” asks Tessai one morning when they’re both in the kitchen – Urahara boiling water for tea, Tessai beginning to make miso soup. It doesn’t escape Urahara that the former Kido Corps captain has started making meals for Kurosaki and leaving them out for him to take with him. 

“What I needed to to keep him on track.” Whose track goes without saying. “He’s still caught up in his own world – can’t see the bigger picture. It’s in his own best interests to become a Shinigami.” Or at least, it will be. 

“You could tell him the truth,” suggests Tessai gently. In all their years in exile, Tessai has remained a staunch, loyal, even-keeled companion. Urahara has trusted him with his life, his wellbeing and – not least important to him – his store. But his plans, tangled and knotted as they are, are his and his alone to bear. That way the only one who need feel the guilt is him. 

“That would be a certain way to fail,” replies Urahara, without censure. 

The whole of his life has been spent plotting and scheming, working to find a way to break every rule of Soul Society for no reason but curiosity. For a while, it brought him praise and status, wealth and respect. Right up to the point when it got him banished. 

He doesn’t know how to stop. Stop the intrigue, stop the casual sacrifice of others for his own secret purposes. He just keeps perpetrating new crimes to cover up the old ones, trying to wipe the slate clean with blood. His intentions are always pure, white as the driven snow. But it’s never him who is sacrificed. 

“Boss…”

“He’ll come around in his own time.” The kettle finishes boiling; Urahara leaves without making his tea.

  
***

In fact, as if to fill the void in his life left by his sudden abandonment of the Urahara Shoten, Kurosaki makes a new friend. Urahara knows this because after the first couple days of the boy’s absence he starts following him. Just to make sure he’s on track.

Friendship is probably too strong a word for what the two share, but there’s no easy word for the concept of one who tried and failed to save you from death. She and Kurosaki throw up sparks at first, like two swords meeting in battle, but they seem to settle quickly into an uncomfortable alliance based on mutual guilt – she for his death, he for taking her job. 

She’s petite – tiny, really – thin as a waif and hardly much taller than Ururu. Her reiatsu is precise and sharp-edged; it’s tinged with ice. 

Urahara doesn’t recognize her, but then he didn’t know many of the lower seats and none of the unseated Shinigami outside his own division. She doesn’t seem dangerous, but in Shinigami looks can be highly deceiving. She has an upright formality about her that speaks of a strict upbringing, holding herself nearly at attention with her hand near the hilt of her zanpaku-to. Not fear, he believes, but readiness. Kurosaki calls her Rukia; the name rings no bells. 

For someone with his decades of training in the Onmitsukido, skulking around following two apparently-teenaged Shinigami is not a challenge. He rarely gets close enough to hear more than a word or two, but he can read the situation just fine from his various vantage points. The female Shinigami – Rukia – is abrupt but curious, trying in a very heavy-handed manner to milk information out of Kurosaki. Kurosaki, like teenage boys everywhere, is proud and affects disinterest that it is clear he doesn’t feel. 

Urahara wonders at the sense of jealousy that creeps through his stomach like acid, leaving a guilty, burning trail. He tells himself it is merely a teacher’s concern of seeing his pupil under different – and suspect – tutelage. After all, what else could it be?

The two of them are standing together in the street, Kurosaki explaining the purpose of the convex street mirror mounted on an orange pole above them with gestures, when the hollow appears. Urahara feels the cold press of its presence, the blossoming of its dark reiatsu nearby. A moment later, both Kurosaki and Rukia’s phones go off. 

Rukia takes off in an instant, leaping atop the nearest house and racing onwards from there. After a moment, Kurosaki goes after her. 

How, Urahara wonders, does she do it so easily? When it took him emotional blackmail of the worst sort to get Kurosaki to _consider_ chasing after hollows. 

To follow them across the rooftops would surely blow his cover. Instead, he nonchalantly saunters back to the Urahara Shoten. He’s Kurosaki’s helper, not his minder, after all. And the hollow was a small one.

  
***

The two of them argue a lot, no matter the place or time. Standing back-to-back in front of a convenience store; shouting at each other’s faces by the bicycle lock-up in front of the station; ignoring each other and checking their phones by the river. It never seems to end. But when the call comes that a hollow has appeared, they take off together.

Urahara watches them fight one afternoon when a hollow appears relatively near the shop and there are (as usual) no customers. He walks out and employs three shunpo steps to secure a vantage point on a nearby roof.

The hollow is a strong, menacing one. It spits explosive slugs at them – Kurosaki slices them in half; Rukia dodges them. Rukia has a certain grace to her movements, a style that is inborn rather than taught. Kurosaki has all the grace of a grizzly bearing down on its prey, but he gets the job done. Together, they destroy the hollow before it can wreak any significant damage. The one casualty is Kurosaki’s shoulder, caught in an explosive blast. It’s raw and bleeding, his shihakusho melted at the edges.

Urahara drops down from the roof and slips closer, into hearing range. 

“We have a division which heals our injuries,” says Rukia, looking sadly at his shoulder. “If you joined me…”

Urahara suddenly knows what it is they bicker about. Rukia wants Kurosaki to become a true Shinigami – to join her in soul society. He feels a sudden pang of panic. But Kurosaki pushes back immediately. “I told you: that’s not happening. I’ll be fine.” 

“Ichigo…”

He waves. “I’m going back. See you later.” He leaves her standing in the middle of the street, heading back up the hill towards town. Urahara steps into shunpo, and disappears.

  
***

He’s sorting through the stock, humming a tuneless song to himself, when the door opens and Kurosaki comes in. Blood smears on the wooden doorframe, the air suddenly smells of burnt flesh. He’s being pushed in by Ururu, looking concerned.

“Kisuke-san!” she calls, although he has already looked up. 

Kurosaki looks reluctant to be here. But injured, there’s nowhere else he could go. 

“I told you a hollow’d get him,” says Jinta, bringing up the rear.

“It didn’t ‘get’ me,” snaps back Kurosaki. But his eyes are on Urahara. 

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since he walked out with the cellphone in hand. 

There are a lot of things Urahara could say, that hover on the tip of his tongue. _Back for help?_ Or _I told you they were dangerous._ Or _Who’s your new friend, Kurosaki-san?_

Instead he puts down the piece of merchandise he’s rearranging and straightens with a smile. “Good to see you again, Kurosaki-san. Come through here.”

  
***

He heals Kurosaki’s injury easily. He could have asked Tessai to do it, of course, but he wanted to be the one to fix up Kurosaki himself. Wanted to see the flesh knit together under his hand, to see the pain fade from the boy’s face. Wanted to heal for once instead of rend.

 _How hideously sentimental_ , he thinks, frowning. 

“What?” says Kurosaki, misinterpreting the expression. “I got it, it didn’t get me – no problem.”

“None at all,” agrees Urahara, forcing his attention back to the present. “How many hollows have you taken care of?” he asks, as if he didn’t know.

“Four. Not counting the first.” His tone is straight-forward, not boastful. Urahara nods approvingly. 

“You’re doing well.”

“Yeah… I guess.” He turns to stare straight at Urahara. “I want you to tell me more about Grand Fisher. Rukia won’t.”

“Rukia?” he asks, with feigned ignorance.

“Someone I met,” replies Kurosaki vaguely, trying to gloss over it. “Grand Fisher,” he repeats.

Urahara finishes with the kaido, the green glow fading from under his hands. He leans back, staring upwards thoughtfully. Eventually he stands, goes to the cabinet at the side of the room and produces his kiseru. He lights it and watches the smoke curl upwards, tenuous and delicate as a reiraku. He leans against the cabinet, conscious of Kurosaki’s curious gaze, and begins. 

“What I know isn’t much – certainly not all that is known. But as you will have noticed, my ties to Soul Society are… complicated.” He takes a pull on the gold mouth-piece of the long-stemmed pipe. “Nevertheless, I know enough. His origin is a mystery, as is true of most hollows. They lie and cheat and steal lives, and are not to be trusted – especially when it comes to their pasts. Some believe he may originally have been the spirit of a young girl – I don’t put much credit in that, myself.”

He watches Kurosaki swallow out of the corner of his eye, the boy’s face pale and drawn. His hands are tense over his knees, his spine rigid. 

“He first came to attention some fifty years ago, when he murdered the Shinigami assigned to this district, and two more who came to investigate. After that he disappeared. I was not involved then – nor have I ever been since. What I know comes by way of the grapevine.” Local spirits aren’t necessarily heavily into gossip, but word of dangerous hollows arcs like summer lightning. And sooner or later, it comes to ground at Urahara Shoten. 

“He’s clever – cleverer than most. And he has unusual powers. Somehow, he seems to brainwash Shinigami; that’s how he defeats them. How precisely he does it is unknown – everyone who’s seen it has died. He also uses a lure; draws in unsuspecting victims like moths to the flame, and then –” he pauses. Because on the floor beside him, Kurosaki is shaking. “Kurosaki-san?”

“A little girl,” says Kurosaki, hoarsely. “That’s what it looked like. A little girl, all alone by the river in the rain. I wanted to help her. And because of that…” He bites his lip furiously, eyes burning with self-recrimination. 

Urahara spares a moment to consider the child Kurosaki had been, the little boy so eager to help someone, so quick to race towards what he had perceived as need – and what had in fact been death, not for him but for the one he loved most.

It’s probably, he thinks belatedly, something he should have considered earlier. Before using Kurosaki’s guilt as his trump card. 

“Your mother must have been very special,” he says eventually, lowering the pipe and letting the smoke snake upwards to wreath about him. 

“She was.” Kurosaki lets out a slow breath, then presses his hands against his knees and rises. “Thanks for the quick fix. And the info.” He heads towards the door.

“Kurosaki-san.”

Kurosaki looks back over his shoulder.

“You are welcome here.” It’s the closest he’ll come to an apology.

He nods. “Thanks. I’ll come by and play with the kids later. But tomorrow… there’s somewhere I’ve got to be.” He waves as he steps out into the hall.

  
***

The next day dawns bright and warm with the promise of heating up to truly blistering by mid-day. There’s not a cloud in the sky, no trace of dew on the parched earth outside.

Kurosaki is gone again when Urahara gets up. But he thinks that this evening, the boy might actually join them for dinner – or at least part of the evening afterwards. 

He wonders idly what it was that Kurosaki had to do – Rukia didn’t mention any commitment when they split up yesterday, and really what could two Shinigami have to do in Karakura on an ordinary summer’s day?

He breezes through breakfast and the shop’s opening rituals, then settles down to read through a Soul Society catalogue and consider any potential expansions to his inventory. 

An hour later, a hollow appears. 

For a moment, Urahara sits considering its reiatsu – it has a familiar, itching cast to it, something that tugs at his memory…

A minute later his memory syncs up, and he stands; the magazine falls to the ground with a slippery thud. He knows this reiatsu, has felt it several times before. 

Grand Fisher.


	7. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted this pretty quick after the last chapter, but I had it ready so why not? :D

It’s been a long time since he felt anxious about someone else. Since his captain days, in fact. He has a sudden, vivid, memory of his fourth seat fighting a hollow. He remembers the fight before he remembers the boy’s name – Ijyuin Isamu – remembers the speed and viciousness of the hollow and the bright flash of red when its spear-like leg tore into Ijyuin’s side. The boy had vanquished it just as Urahara had prepared to blast it into non-existence. He had looked up at his captain, panting with pain and pride. 

Urahara had been unprepared, then, for the feeling of anxious responsibility that flooded into him watching his subordinate fight for his life. For the cold hand that gripped his stomach and the icy chill that seeped into his skin. 

He’s just as unprepared for it now. After all, what is Kurosaki to him? A project, a scheme, a chance to set things right. Not someone to get attached to. 

It might be too late for that.

Urahara suddenly wishes that Yoruichi were here, that she were sitting right across from him to tell him he’s being foolish and sentimental and needs to screw his head on straight. But she’s not, and he’s never been much good at taking his own advice. 

He bends to straighten the magazine he dropped. Then he leaves the store.

  
***

The sun is already high overhead, golden light soaking into Urahara’s dark haori and making him sweat. All around dragonflies zoom through the air, tiny and delicate, intent on their own tasks. They give the day a sense of laziness that he tries to capture. But his heart is beating too quickly, his palms moist and his chest tight. He hurries on.

He focuses on the hollow’s dark reiatsu: it’s distinct and eerie as nails down a chalkboard. It makes it all the simpler to follow. He crosses town in a series of shunpo steps, passing by the Kurosaki clinic and up the hill behind. Towards the graveyard where Kurosaki Ichigo – and Kurosaki Masaki before him – was interred. He comes out of shunpo in a tree by the path, his dark form blending into the shadows. 

It’s there, on the steps leading up the hill to the cemetery, that he sees Grand Fisher. 

He’s never seen the creature before – it’s large and squat, covered in shaggy fur that fails to obscure its tiny clawed feet. And right now, it’s dangling a lure from its head in front of the two Shinigami.

Kurosaki and Rukia are standing between him and the hollow, both staring at it. Urahara sees nothing but a lifeless girl hanging from the antenna, but by the rapt attention they pay it he doubts that’s what they see. 

“Kaien-dono,” whispers Rukia, stepping forward. The hollow’s pelt ripples, strands of fur twining together into spears. The whisper of its needles brushing against each other is like a porcupine’s, only these are far more deadly. It raises them to point at the two Shinigami. Neither seems to notice.

Urahara leans back on his pine bough, focuses his mind, and raises his hand. “Hado 68: Raitei.” Bolts of blue lightning descend from the clear sky, ripping straight across the hollow’s back and meeting at its head. It’s blown backwards, the antenna holding the lure ripped clean away. 

Kurosaki gives himself a shake, dog-like. “The hell was that?” he asks. He doesn’t look around. But Grand Fisher is already getting to its feet. He elbows Rukia in the side to snap her attention to the present, then raises his sword. 

“Come and get it, you bastard,” he snarls, stepping into a waiting stance. Grand Fisher doesn’t disappoint. Its fur spears outwards, slicing through the air towards Kurosaki. He cuts through it effortlessly, while beside him Rukia releases her shikai. It’s plain but elegant – a far cry from Kurosaki’s nameless blade of raw power given form.

Together they charge forward, Kurosaki going in low, Rukia going in high. Urahara watches from his post in the tree as they drive their blades deep into the hollow’s hide, making it scream. 

“He’s mine,” bellows Kurosaki. Rukia doesn’t back off, but Kurosaki’s already going in for the kill – he buries his zanpaku-to in the hollow’s skull. It gives a final, disbelieving scream as it evaporates. What its life will be like in Soul Society, Urahara can’t begin to contemplate. 

Kurosaki is left standing alone in the middle of the long staircase rising up to the cemetery, Rukia several steps behind him. He just stares blankly at the empty space beside him where Grand Fisher had stood. His back is to Urahara, but Urahara reads clearly his absolute puzzlement at having struck down the thing that killed his mother with such comparative ease. 

“Ichigo?” Rukia comes up behind him. He turns, face starkly pained. 

“All I wanted to do was protect her,” he says, more to himself than her. 

“Protect who?”

Kurosaki shakes his head. “Never mind. It’s – never mind. I’ll see you later.”

“Hey – wait! Ichigo!” 

But he’s already walking down the steps, sheathing his enormous blade on his back. His feet drag as though coated in cement. Rukia stares after him, crosses her arms and taps her foot, then leaps into a tree and away.

  
***

Because he employs shunpo, he gets back to the Urahara Shoten half an hour before Kurosaki. When the boy does turn up, head low and shoulders rounded, he’s surprised Kurosaki come back here of all places. But when he passes by looking chiseled out of granite, Urahara barely manages to wave and give him his usual bright smile. Kurosaki makes a small noise of acknowledgement and slips upstairs.

Urahara never knew his mother. He grew up in the Shihouin mansion, a vassal of that great family. Great things had been expected of him from an early age, but never by someone kind and loving. If he had been prone to psychoanalysis, he might have wondered if that had fed his need to over-achieve. As it is, he just considers that a young boy left to do nothing but train himself to be a weapon was bound to get into trouble. 

The only real surprise is that it took as long as it did.

Regardless, his parentless childhood meant he never had to experience the grief Kurosaki did, nor the dubious joy of destroying his mother’s murderer. He has no frame of reference for the boy’s feelings. So he pours a few fingers of shochu into a tumbler and heads upstairs. 

Kurosaki is standing by the window, looking out over the town beyond. 

“Kurosaki-saaan,” he calls as he opens the door. “Congratulations!”

Kurosaki doesn’t look over. “Oh. You know.”

“I told you I was familiar with Grand Fisher – the reiatsu was easy to recognize.” He steps in, letting the clear liquid slosh up against the side of the glass. “I brought you something.”

Kurosaki does look now, squinting at the glass. “Is that… alcohol?” he asks. 

Urahara beams. “Of course! A momentous occasion deserves a proper celebration!”

“I’m fifteen!”

“Japan’s law’s don’t apply to the dead,” he replies cheerfully. 

“First you try to melt off my clothes, then you try to drown me, now you’re trying to get me drunk. What _exactly_ is wrong with you?” he asks. “And why haven’t I asked sooner,” he adds.

“I’m wounded! I only had your best intentions at heart.”

“I don’t want your damn liquor,” says Kurosaki, but he’s almost smiling now. 

“Really?” asks Urahara plaintively, eyes wide. 

“Really.”

“Well then, waste not…” he downs the glass himself. 

“You sure you didn’t just bring that up as an excuse for day-drinking?” 

“I’m an independent businessman with two children to mind and an overly-competent manager. I don’t need an excuse,” replies Urahara, smiling. Kurosaki smiles back. “I’m pleased you’ve come back, Kurosaki-san,” he says, hoping it’s enough. 

Kurosaki nods, the shadows in his eyes lightening. “Thanks.”

  
***

They eat dinner together, and do the dishes, and listen to a baseball game on the radio at Jinta’s insistence. But Urahara and Kurosaki don’t really talk again until late that night, when the kids have gone to bed and Tessai is meditating in his room.

Urahara has another glass of shochu – this one he doesn’t offer to Kurosaki. They sit in companionable silence, burning incense against mosquitos and listening to a nearby wind chime. 

“There was nothing you could have done any differently, when you were a boy,” Urahara tells him, at last. “It’s a miracle you weren’t also killed.”

Kurosaki pulls a leg up to hold against his chest, chin low and eyes staring into the distance. “I know that. In the back of my mind, I’ve always known it. But all I saw everyday was how miserable I was, and Karin and Yuzu, and Dad were, and… it was so easy to blame myself.”

“You wanted to protect her,” says Urahara, easily.

Kurosaki looks up. “Yeah,” he says, surprised. “It’s stupid, but… when I was little, my Dad told me I was meant to protect someone – that’s why he named me Ichigo. And as much trouble as my name’s gotten me, I’ve never resented it. Because I wanted it to be true. But I couldn’t protect her.”

“You have a chance now to protect others. To make sure they don’t go through what you did,” suggests Urahara after a moment, taking a drink and carefully not making eye contact. “Would that be so bad?”

“I don’t want to fail anyone else,” says Kurosaki, softly. And then, “But I guess that’s not a reason for doing nothing, is it?”

“You’ve done more already than any soul I’ve met,” replies Urahara, meaning it.

“But it’s not enough, is it?”

Urahara looks back to him, moonlight falling on his face. He wants to suggest otherwise. But that’s not an option. “No.”

“Then I’ll keep trying.”

  
***

Over the next few days, Kurosaki re-integrates as a member of Urahara Shoten. He helps out at the store between hollow fights, does his share of the chores, plays with the children. He’s still getting stronger, taking out even more powerful hollows sometimes even before the district’s Shinigami gets there. Urahara stops following him.

He’s starting to think that this might all work out. That his grand scheme will come to fruition, that Kurosaki will have a future here – or wherever he chooses, when all of this is done. 

He’s coming, he realises, to truly like the boy. 

But then, when have things ever truly worked out for him?

  
***

He’s reading in his room late one evening when he senses it: a captain’s reiatsu.

Kurosaki is out on a hollow hunt with Rukia somewhere on the other side of the city. For a moment, Urahara considers the possibility that it’s nothing to do with them, that whoever it is is here on some other mission, for some other purpose.

But that’s just silly. 

Picking up Benihime, he hurries out. Tessai is on the landing looking concerned, but he brushes past him. “I’ll take care of it.”

He leaves the darkened store on his own, closing the door firmly behind him, and steps out into the warm evening. The streetlights are on, streams of artificial light pouring down.

He can remember when there were no streetlights, when citizens patrolled with lanterns and warnings about fire safety, when there was no light pollution to hide the night’s stars.

Perhaps he’s been here too long.

He steps easily into shunpo, crossing the town in a flash. 

It’s still not soon enough to keep from seeing Kurosaki struck down by a blow from one of two strange Shinigami standing under the cherry trees. That one, he doesn’t recognize. The other, he does: Kuchiki Byakuya. 

Kurosaki is struggling to his feet; the other Shinigami – he has red hair and tattoos and a serious attitude – strikes him down again. Or tries to; this time, Kurosaki pushes back, catching the blade and repelling it. He’s bleeding heavily, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down. 

On the sidelines, Rukia is watching, looking torn. “Renji – please – don’t –”

“Enough,” says Kuchiki heavily, silencing her.

“It _is_ enough, isn’t it,” comments Urahara, strolling into the picture. All four Shinigami’s heads swivel to look at him. “My, my, young Byakuya. A captain at last. I didn’t imagine seeing you here.”

“Urahara,” says Kuchiki, coldly. But he shifts his stance, hand moving infinitesimally closer to his sword. “What do you have to do with this _travesty?_ ” 

“It’s quite simple: it’s my doing. My hand at work – isn’t that obvious?” He smiles, cat-like. “Quite a quandary, isn’t it?”

“Not really: my duty is to apprehend those who break Soul Society’s laws. You’re both guilty. You will both come with me.”

“Only one of us broke any laws. Kurosaki is what I made him – a victim, if anything. I’m the hand that wielded the power.” He shifts his stance nonchalantly, leaning pointedly on Benihime. “I’ll give you a good deal: if you leave him be, I’ll come with you. If not, you’ll have both of us to fight, and I can guarantee you you’ll return empty handed.”

“More would come after me,” replies Kuchiki, consideringly. 

He’s right. Captain after captain will come, until one of them defeats him and takes Kurosaki backs to Soul Society. Takes the _Hougyoku_ back to Soul Society. That is unallowable. “But _you_ would have failed. Easier this way, isn’t it?”

“What the _hell_ are you saying?” breaks in Kurosaki, panting, his blood dripping onto the pavement. 

“This isn’t about you, Kurosaki-san. This is about the past – a long history of misdeeds only the most recent of which involve you.”

“You can’t just go with them!”

Urahara glances at him sedately. “I certainly can.” He turns to Kuchiki, eyes hard. “If that’s your choice.”

Kuchiki nods. “Very well. You will come with us and face justice for your crimes.”

Urahara looks back to Kurosaki, struggling to stand. He’s struck, as ever, by Kurosaki’s utter refusal to surrender. But it won’t do him any good here. Even if he were a match for the red-head, Kuchiki would cut him down without hesitation or mercy. And that would be the end of Urahara’s sole chance at redemption. So he cocks his head to the side and smiles with his eyes. “Look after your family. That’s what you wanted.” He picks up Benihime at the centre and holds her out to Kuchiki, who takes her with formality. 

“You can’t – this isn’t – _don’t_ ,” grits Kurosaki, falling to one knee. 

Urahara gives him a wave, and turns his back. With Kuchiki’s hand on his shoulder, he enters the Senkaimon. 

And just like that, he’s gone.


	8. Limbo

No one knows what to do with him.

It’s been decades since a captain faced formal charges, and centuries since one faced those as grave as Urahara. His original crimes, twisted as they were by Aizen, had rated banishment to the human world to live a human’s brief life. His new crimes tip the balance towards capital punishment. 

He wonders anyone can still breathe given the amount of oxygen the gossip must be using up. 

They lock him up in the Sixth Division, shackled hand and foot in chains of sekkiseki. He’s given a large single cell with nothing but a chair and a window with a view of the courtyard beyond. They strip him of his clothes, his geta, his hat, and leave him barefoot in a plain white yukata. He’s a prisoner, not a guest, after all. 

It’s all incredibly boring. 

The military formality of the Gotei 13 is a world he lived in for most of his life, but it’s not something he’s missed. The elegance of Seireitei, the companionship of like-minded people, the availability of funding and space and time to work on his projects – these are what he’s missed. But they’re no longer accessible to him. And honestly, perhaps if he’d had less time and money and like-minded companions to support him, he wouldn’t be in this mess now. 

There’s nothing like the threat of capital punishment to make a man reassess all his life choices. Urahara has niggles of doubts, but only three real regrets: that he created the Hougyoku, that Yoruichi and Tessai lost their places in Soul Society to save him, and that he couldn’t carry out his plans to dispose of the experiment that created this whole mess.

His death won’t change any of those things, more’s the pity.

  
***

The sekkiseki is making him dizzy, and slightly nauseous. When he closes his eyes he feels as though his head is spinning, and when he opens them again there’s a sensation that everything has just snapped abruptly back to stillness. For a while he considers the connections between reiatsu and the inner ear – whether there is some hitherto-unknown link between the two that explains this phenomenon.

But then there’s the metallic scrape of a key in the door to the holding area, and a guard escorts a familiar petite form in. The Shinigami Rukia steps in hesitantly, her eyes on Urahara. 

He hadn’t expected a guest. Or at least, not one so unknown to him. 

She steps forward without her sword – it was doubtless surrendered to the guard on the outside of the holding area – and comes up to the bars to consider him. He leans back in his chair, slouching slightly. The chains clink. 

“Kurosaki-san’s friend,” he says kindly.

“Kuchiki Rukia,” she announces with formality, eyes large and watchful.

His own eyes widen slightly at that. No wonder Kuchiki Byakuya was assigned this case, his – what? Sister? Daughter? – was patrolling their district. 

“I see,” he says. “What can I do for you?”

“Why did you do it?” she blurts out. She bites her lip, then continues on, “Give Ichigo Shinigami powers. It can’t have been easy…”

He wonders vaguely who sent her, whether she is here to trick testimony out of him. Frankly, he doesn’t care. Central 46 has likely already made its decision – or had it made for them. He can’t imagine anything he says mattering. 

“He wanted to remain and protect his family; it was the only realistic way. As for how difficult it was – he was the one enduring the trials of becoming a Shinigami, not I.”

“So you just go around giving people what they want?” she asks, sounding peeved. “At such a price?”

“He is unusual – you must have recognized that. Not one soul in a thousand would have had the fortitude to undergo what he did; not one in a million would have succeeded.” Urahara folds his hands on his lap, fingers intertwining; the unforgiving weight of his manacles cuts into his thigh. “I wanted to give him a chance.”

He sees the question _Was it worth it?_ hovering on her lips. However, she has better manners than to ask it. Instead she turns down a new path, almost angrily. “He should have come with me. Should have joined the Gotei 13. He could be a seated officer in almost no time. He could have had a real future. Now he’s an outcast.”

“Living apart from Soul Society is not the worst fate that could befall one,” he says softly. She flushes, realising the insult, and looks down. 

“I’m sorry.”

He waves away her apology. “You pitied Kurosaki-san. Perhaps, you even pitied me. But we were neither of us unhappy.” He lets the rest fall unspoken: _And now I await my death._

“I did my duty in reporting him. He had already been noticed – Grand Fisher… he stood out like an elephant among mice.” She doesn’t sound defensive. She sounds saddened. “I didn’t know you would come for him.”

Urahara shrugs. “Then he would have been punished instead. Central 46 sees things in black and white.”

She looks up, eyes flashing. “Why are you protecting him? Why give your life for him?”

Urahara stares back calmly. “My reasons, Kuchiki-san, are my own.”

She looks away first. “I see.” She bows her head, then turns away. She leaves without another word.

  
***

Someone from the Fourth is assigned to take care of him. Mostly it just involves sweeping out his cell of the day’s accumulation of dust, and providing tasteless meals. Urahara hardly eats; the sekkiseki has robbed him of his appetite.

The Shinigami is mousy, small and obsequious with worried eyes and a shy smile. He ducks into Urahara’s cell with his broom and begins sweeping. At first, he holds his silence. But it seems to pry into him, eating away at his restraint. Urahara can feel his eyes on his back as he sweeps behind the chair and dusts the window ledge. Feel the curiosity licking up against him like a cat’s harsh tongue. 

Small talk is, at least, one way to divert the boredom. 

“I suppose Unohana’s the only one,” he says, musingly.

“S-sir?” stutters the Shinigami.

“The only captain you’ve ever spoken to,” he says kindly. And then, turning to face the boy, “Or former captain.”

The boy drops his broom with a clatter. He stiffens towards attention. “Yes!”

“We don’t bite. Most of us,” he adds, consideringly. The Shinigami’s mouth is forming a comical O shape as he stares. “What’s your name?”

“Y-Yamada Hanataro!” He dips into a stiff bow. “Pleased to meet you.”

Urahara smiles. “Now,” he says, crossing his legs and leaning back. “What is it you want to know?”

  
***

Yamada, it turns out, has never been to the human world. He’s intensely curious about it, about everything from food and drink to music to clothing. He’s heard of cars but doesn’t understand them, and is completely bemused by planes.

“Humans are intensely creative,” he says, while Yamada polishes the cell’s bars. “They are extremely aware of their limitations, and seek to expand them.” Perhaps it’s why he fit in so well, he considers. “They have hundreds of journals devoted to new inventions and discoveries and medicines, and give prestigious prizes for scientific work. While Soul Society values stability and tradition, they race each other to grow and change.”

When he had arrived in Tokyo horses had still been the primary form of transportation, with steam trains in their infancy and cars still on the horizon. Now there were cellphones and laptops, more information flowing back and forth across the world in a vast digital sea than could be measured. He had come back to a society using candles and ink brushes. 

But then, he wouldn’t be here for long.

  
***

“Weren’t you lonely?” asks Yamada the next day he visits, wiping down the window sill.

Urahara considers the question. “No,” he says at last, closing his eyes and feeling the gentle tug of his dizziness. “I was never alone.” He’d had Yoruichi and Tessai. When Yoruichi had left, free spirit that she was, he’d found the children to bring life and laughter back into his home. 

“I wondered if maybe that was why you gave a soul Shinigami powers,” says Yamada. 

The fact that he’d given his decision to make a Shinigami of Kurosaki so much less thought than everyone in Soul Society supposes is amusing. They had been shocked by his off-the-cuff nature a century ago – it’s good to know things haven’t changed. 

“Kurosaki-san is… special,” he says, opening his eyes and waiting for the dizziness to abate. Yamada has turned to watch him. “His mother was killed by Grand Fisher when he was a boy – the hollow was after him. He was born with strong reiatsu, and it only grew as he did. The next hollow he met killed him. And yet all he’s been worried about since then is his family. He’s never once complained about losing his life. I respected that. He’s not at all conventional – I respected that as well,” adds Urahara, with a toothy grin.

“Is he like you?” asks Yamada.

“Not at all!” Urahara tilts his head back to consider, which turns out to be a mistake – the dizziness returns full force and he has to straighten abruptly, swallowing down his nausea. “I have never been a serious person. Kurosaki-san is very determined – his feelings are intense and unchanging. But he’s amusing as well – he takes himself so seriously.”

“He sounds interesting.”

“He’s the most interesting person I’ve met in a long time,” replies Urahara. Perhaps since he left Soul Society.

  
***

Yamada comes again the next day, this time bringing a bucket and cloth to clean the floor. “Tell me more about Kurosaki-san. Is he a good Shinigami?” he asks

Urahara rubs gently at the skin beneath the manacle, already beginning to chafe and redden. “That depends on your definition. He is extremely strong, but untrained. He defeated several hollows easily. He killed Grand Fisher.” Albeit with some intervention. “He would not pass a formal exam here, but he could defeat seated officers from any division.”

Not for the first time, Urahara wonders what will happen to the boy now. Tessai might continue his tutelage – likely with much greater formality than Urahara undertook it. Or Kurosaki might refuse further instruction and continue on his own. If so, it might be years before he reaches shikai. If he does at all. 

He worries about Kurosaki’s isolation. Alone in the human world as a Shinigami, without companionship or a home. He’ll still be welcome at Urahara Shoten, but somehow he thinks Kurosaki will abandon it – will let his guilt over Urahara’s departure destroy that connection. His relationship with Rukia may also suffer, leaving him even more disconnected from those who might otherwise have helped him. 

But there’s nothing he can do about that. Soul Society is not forgiving of transgressions. He believes Kuchiki will keep his word to leave Kurosaki alone, but they will not be welcoming of him henceforth. The first time he steps over a line, they’ll bring him in. 

What a mess he’s made of it all. 

“Urahara-san?” says Yamada, concerned. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “It’s nothing.”

  
***

Kuchiki Byakuya returns a day later, holding an official document in his hand.

“Urahara Kisuke. By the judgement of Central 46, you have been sentenced to death. The method of execution will be the Soukyoku. The time will be 15 days from now. Tomorrow you will be removed from this place and taken to the Senzaikyu to await your death. Do you have any statement to make?”

Urahara looks up. He meets Kuchiki’s eye and sees neither compassion nor condolence there.

“I have nothing to say.” 

Kuchiki turns and walks out, leaving him alone in silence.


	9. Not Alone

The Soukyoku is an unexpected twist. Even as a former captain, he could be executed with an ordinary zanpaku-to, if that was Central 46’s command. Clearly, they want to make an example. And what an example it will be. He will be burned beyond ashes – every last trace of Urahara Kisuke destroyed. 

He wonders at the mercilessness of it. 

But then Aizen always was a cold-hearted bastard, and he can only presume he still has Central 46’s ear. This kind of cruel showmanship reeks of his hand. 

Urahara stands, waits for the light-headedness to pass, then walks over to look out the window at the empty courtyard beyond. Perhaps he should have used his opportunity to speak to cast doubt on Aizen, to try to wake Soul Society to the maggot in its midst. 

But his words would only have been cast aside as bitter stone-throwing. Besides, Soul Society is no longer his concern. If it rots from within, such is its fate. Those he cares about are no longer within its grasp. 

Beyond the window a lone sparrow flies by. He watches it until it disappears from his line of sight. 

It’s been a long time since he appreciated freedom.

  
***

Yamada comes to his cell late that night, bringing his evening meal. “You’re to be moved tomorrow,” he says softly, eyes downcast.

“So I hear,” replies Urahara cheerfully. “At least I won’t be beholden to Captain Kuchiki’s hospitality.” 

“Will they really use the Soukyoku?” asks Yamada, shivering. Urahara considers him carefully – an unusually gentle soul, even for the Fourth. And a kindly one. 

“Yes.” He has no doubts. 

Yamada’s hands bunch, his shoulders shaking. “It doesn’t seem fair,” he says, miserably. “You’re not a bad person.”

“You mustn’t think that, Yamada-san.” Urahara’s voice is soft and kind. “I’ve done a great many foolish things. Some of them are unforgivable.” He thinks of the Visored; of Yoruichi and Tessai outlawed on Earth; of the Hougyoku resting in Kurosaki’s chest, hidden – but for how long?

“That doesn’t change who you are,” replies Yamada staunchly. “You don’t deserve…” he trails off, unable to speak of the fate that awaits Urahara. 

“It’s not your fault, Yamada-san. You’ve done very well by me – I appreciate it.” He hands the untouched tray back to the Shinigami. “I’m sorry; I’m not hungry. Thank you for everything.” 

For a minute, he thinks Yamada will argue with him. But the boy doesn’t have it in him. Instead he takes the tray and leaves, back hunched and eyes sad. Urahara rubs absently at his sore wrist, and closes his eyes.

  
***

He’s awake early the next morning, early enough to see the sunrise.

It’s several hours after that that his escort arrives to take him to the Senzaikyu. Leading it is a man he recognizes – or rather, recognizes in him the boy he once knew. 

“Ijyuin-san,” he says gravely, when the door is opened. 

“Captain Urahara,” replies the man, bowing. 

“I’m not your captain anymore,” says Urahara, standing. “Urahara will do.”

Ijyuin fastens the red restraining strap around his neck – it’s more ceremonial than functional, especially with the chains of sekkiseki on his wrists and ankles. He clanks out of his cell accompanied by Ijyuin and the Onmitsukido escort. 

This will be his last time on the streets of Seireitei. It’s a straight shot from the Senzaikyu to the execution grounds; there will be nothing to be seen on that final journey. He passes groups of Shinigami staring and whispering, there to watch him march off towards his death. It’s really hopelessly feudal. 

“We should have gone earlier to avoid the crowds,” remarks Ijyuin apologetically. 

“Oh, I think they would have risen before dawn to see a former captain taken to the Senzaikyu,” replies Urahara lightly. 

He ignores the gawkers and takes in the details he has missed all these long years – the minimalist elegance of the walled compounds and lanes, the occasional beauty of a rain chain or wind chime hanging from the eaves of a tiled roof. Even the soft whisper of waraji on gravel brings back an almost crushing nostalgia. This is the world to which he had once belonged. 

Now it seems ruthless and hidebound. 

By the time they reach the bridge to the Senzaikyu, he’s growing dizzy from the chains, breathing hard and fighting to retain his balance. Ijyuin catches his shoulder when he stumbles, chains clattering hard on the ground. 

“Urahara-san?”

“I’m fine,” he replies, straightening. 

He’s taken into the tower, a spiral staircase reaching up into the darkness above, a single tall slit window letting in a stream of light directly across from him. Ijyuin escorts him in and releases the ropes from his collar, freeing him from the guards. He takes him across the room to the window where he can see the Soukyoku towering in the distance. A fitting memento mori. 

“Captain,” he says quietly, continuing before Urahara can protest the title, “You should know – two Ryoka have entered Rukongai.”

Urahara’s head shoots up, his eyes widening. 

Yoruichi and Tessai. The fools still don’t know when to abandon him. He could – _should_ – have expected it from Yoruichi, but Tessai he would have thought too committed to the children and the shop. 

“One of them,” adds Ijyuin, before he’s caught his breath, “has bright orange hair.” 

Kurosaki Ichigo. 

Here. In Soul Society. 

No.

No. 

_No._

Urahara’s knees give out suddenly, dumping him onto the cold stone floor. Ijyuin fusses at his shoulders, trying to shake him from his daze. But all he can think is the same disbelieving denial: 

No!

  
***

He had, for once in his life, resigned himself to going quietly without scheming. To surrendering to fate in his own way, at the time of his own choice.

But now it seems even in the shadow of death he will not be allowed peace from his own machinations. 

He can’t allow Kurosaki to be captured. Above all, not by Aizen. 

Bound by sekkiseki, there is of course no chance of him fighting for himself. Yoruichi may make it here unscathed, but he can’t count on Kurosaki to have the same luck – even if she took the time to train him for shikai before coming, it would still not be enough to save him in an encounter with a captain. 

Of course, not all13 captains are necessarily adversaries. Ukitake and Shunsui would help if they could – and if he had a way to get word to them. Even Unohana might turn a blind eye to an escape attempt. He wonders vaguely what loyalty he might expect from Kurotsuchi, now captain of his old division, and decides on none – he respected no one but himself. And as for Sui-Feng… only Yoruichi could predict her reaction. 

Yoruichi has the skills and the intelligence to seek out help. He just prays Kurosaki is with her.

  
***

Ijyuin is one of the guards stationed by the door to the Senzaikyu. Urahara discovers this when his former subordinate begins talking to him. It’s an immense breach of protocol, and probably technically treason, but who is he to care?

He takes to sitting with his back to the door, listening to what Ijyuin has to tell him. 

It starts with a summary of happenings in Soul Society over the past 100 years, and carries on from there. Urahara doesn’t tell Ijyuin he’s remained in touch through means of Soul Society’s regular magazines and catalogues; it’s important to get an insider’s perspective. 

From him he learns that Aizen and Ukitake are viewed as the best beloved of the 13 captains, that Zaraki Kenpachi is widely considered the scariest (but only by those who don’t know Unohana’s past), and that everyone claims to like Ichimaru but no one really trusts him. The Twelfth is viewed as an asylum run by a mad scientist who is universally despised; the Second has become merciless and bloodthirsty since losing Yoruichi. 

None of it, really, is surprising. But he appreciates the news all the same, enjoys his afternoons spent catching up on a century’s worth of gossip. 

There is no news of the Ryoka.

  
***

Urahara is particularly interested in Aizen. He knew, of course, that the man had been elevated to captain of the Fifth, but beyond that he is relatively in the dark.

Ijyuin tells him the vice-captain in that division is loyal to the hilt – a talented kido user, she came up quickly through the ranks and was hand-picked to replace Ichimaru Gin when Aizen’s former vice-captain won his own captaincy. Urahara approves of loyalty in subordinates, but what he hears from Ijyuin sounds much closer to worship – a quiet but absolute devotion. It surprises Urahara; the Aizen he remembers would have been impatient with unrelenting adoration. But then, he had also been an excellent actor. And blind faith can have its uses. 

“There _was_ something strange about Captain Aizen a while ago,” says Ijyuin, latching onto Urahara’s interest in the man.

“What was that?”

“He brought all the vice-captains together and showed them his bankai.”

Urahara stares at the window across from him, at the tiny sliver of daylight. “That _is_ strange.” Bankai is a closely guarded secret, something both intensely personal and strategically essential. He’s never known someone to purposefully show it off. Especially someone with Aizen’s snake-like cunning. 

It feels like some sort of scheme, like a trap somehow. But for the life of him, Urahara can’t imagine how.

  
***

The days pass more quickly than he had expected, trapped in a featureless prison. He’s grateful for Ijyuin’s presence, for the conversations and the news he brings. Every day, he waits for news of Yoruichi and Kurosaki, that they’ve been spotted, followed, caught.

It doesn’t come.

  
***

He’s beginning to think he won’t have an opportunity to do anything to protect them. Time is winding down, the date of his execution approaching.

Outside, the Soukyoku stands tall, the immense blade shining in the sunlight.

  
***

The next day he’s sitting at the window looking out, not at the Soukyoku but the world beyond, when the sky suddenly cracks. It’s not a hollow, but something coming into contact with the barrier around Seireitei.

 _Shiba Kuukaku_ , he thinks. Of course Yoruichi would go to her for help. And now…

He watches as the cannon ball penetrates the barrier, the occupants split apart by the force of the explosion. Where they land, he can’t tell.

So they truly have come for him, come all the way to Seireitei. 

For the first time, he feels terribly, crushingly helpless.

  
***

“Captain,” whispers Ijyuin urgently later that day, at the beginning of his shift. Urahara is already sitting with his back against the door – standing is becoming difficult against the weight of the sekkiseki in his chains and in the walls of the Senzaikyu.

“I’m here.” He’s given up reprimanding his former subordinate for the use of his title. Ijyuin’s capable of making his own decisions. And frankly, right now he can’t muster the energy to care. 

“The Ryoka have entered Seireitei. All divisions have been ordered to search for them.”

They won’t find Yoruichi. But Kurosaki, with his immense reiatsu, will stand out like a sore thumb. It’s only a matter of time until he’s captured. And Urahara, for all his machinations, is in no position to save him.

Which can only mean they’ll both of them die for his mistakes. 

Urahara rests his head back against the cold weight of the door and closes his eyes. 

What an abysmal failure he is.


	10. Visitors

News, which had hardly trickled in for the past few days, is suddenly coming fast and furious. There are reports of Ryoka sightings from all quarters – far too many to be accurate. The unseated Shinigami are rushing about like headless chickens, conducting inefficient and poorly organized searches. The seated officers are trying to corral them. The captains and vice captains are, for the most part, observing from the sidelines. 

Urahara wonders whether this collapse under pressure is something that has come to them in the past hundred years, or whether such a tiny invasion would have caused it in his time as well. There will be a reckoning when this is all over, he has no doubt. Yamamoto must be _furious._

It makes him just a little proud. 

“Captain,” says Ijyuin through the door, “I’ve just heard. Two seated officers from the Eleventh have been defeated and taken to the Fourth. The Ryoka have evaded capture.”

He takes a slow breath, fighting back anxiety. If he spends every second of every day until his execution worrying, he’ll be an old man by the time his appointment with the Soukyoku rolls around. He draws down deep into his reserves of composure, the ones which kept him sane and fighting through the bloodbaths of Onmitsukido assignments and the reek of the Nest of Maggots. 

“Ijyuin-san,” he says, eyes hard. “I have a favour to ask of you.”

  
***

By rights, he shouldn’t have asked it. He’s endangering Ijyuin’s reputation and status, potentially even his position. But he is very low on options right now; every available opportunity must be exploited.

He asks his former subordinate to carry a message – a plea – to Ukitake and Shunsui. _The Ryoka have come for me. Find them and send them back to the Human world; others should not suffer for my folly._

He has no way of knowing whether they will do as he requests, of course. But he thinks so. Ukitake is too kind to throw away a doomed man’s wish, and Shunsui respects friendships above regulations. 

Whether they will succeed is another matter entirely.

  
***

He doesn’t sleep well that night. Beyond the Soukyoku he can see dozens of lanterns glowing like tiny fireflies in the white streets of Seireitei as the Shinigami search for the intruders. Every now and then the warning tattoo is struck up, the hammer sounding on the wooden board echoing far and wide – _danger, alarm, awake!_

It takes him back to his days in the Onmitukido, back to long nights of black-on-black missions, of stumbling home in the early hours of the morning covered in blood – someone else’s, always – and being thankful the world hadn’t fallen apart in his absence. They had been so imbued with the idea that the world teetered on a knife’s edge, that one failed mission could bring about the end of Soul Society. 

Now he knows the truth – that Shinigami fail all the time, and while it rarely makes an impact on Soul Society, it’s the end of _their_ lives and that’s what should matter. But that’s anathema to the faceless killers of Onmitsukido, where another waits in the wings for every member struck down. 

It took his promotion to captaincy to see that individuals were more than cannon fodder. It took expulsion from Soul Society to teach him that view was not universal. 

He listens to the alarm sounding throughout the night, and when he’s too tired to stop it, his fingers twitch towards Benihime’s absent weight.

  
***

The next day he’s sitting by the window when he hears the sound of running feet on the bridge outside. He levers himself up against the wall and strides shakily across the floor to lean against the door. He hears Ijyuin dismissing the guard, his heavy steps thumping away.

“What’s happened?” asks Urahara.

“It’s Captain Aizen. He’s dead!”

For a moment, Urahara’s too stunned to speak. Could Yoruichi have taken revenge for their banishment? But while she can be merciless, she doesn’t wallow in vengeance. 

“How?” he asks, the stone wall cold beneath his shaking hand. 

“He was impaled on the top of a building – pinned there like a butterfly-collector’s trophy. Little Hinamori nearly lost her mind; they say she attacked Captain Ichimaru.” Ijyuin sounds shocked by the transgression. 

Urahara frowns. Ichimaru Gin had been Aizen’s vice-captain – could he have known Aizen’s secrets and plotted against him? He doesn’t know enough of the man to make that determination. 

Whoever killed Aizen was a showman – a proficient one. Yoruichi, who kills in the shadows, would never have been so blatant. 

Of all the things to happen, this is one he never would have expected. But it means one thing: if they can get Kurosaki back to his world, the Hougyoku will be safe. 

Urahara feels something in his chest begin to loosen at that thought. 

This might not end in complete disaster after all.

  
***

“Tell me more about Ichimaru Gin,” he says, back to sitting against the door, his arms resting on his knees. His wrists have been chaffed raw by the manacles; the reddened skin stands out starkly against his pale arms.

“Honestly, I don’t know much about him, Captain. He’s a child prodigy. Just turned up one day and was taken under Captain Aizen’s wing. He’s been there ever since – ‘cept when he made captain, of course.”

“And since then?”

There’s a silence, Ijyuin clearly considering. “He’s strong,” he offers. There’s no reply to be made to that – all captains are strong by definition. Ijyuin, clearly recognizing the inadequacy of his answer, goes on. “He’s quiet – but always smiling. Not like you,” adds Ijyuin, with a complete lack of self-consciousness. “You were always pleasant, Captain. Captain Ichimaru… it’s like he’s sizing you up and looking for weaknesses. He’s always polite, but it feels like an act.”

“And he lived in Aizen’s shadow,” muses Urahara.

“Yes, sir.” 

It would be strange for a devotee to kill his former captain. Stranger still for one who seems so like Aizen – a snake hiding behind a mask of humility. If they were so alike, Aizen should have recognized the danger signs. 

He’s still finding it difficult to believe someone finally got the better of the man.

  
***

He’s thinking quietly to himself when the world explodes.

At least that’s what his senses, so depleted by the sekkiseki, tell him. He’s actually shivering from the force of the sudden shattering force of reiatsu, shaking like an Academy student faced with his first hollow. 

The reiatsu ravages him. It flays him, slicing under his skin and ripping him apart, rending him with savage violence. He can barely breathe, chest crushed by the incredible weight and fury assailing him.

“-tain? Captain? _Captain?_ ”

It’s several moments before he can pull himself together, grinding his teeth together so tightly his jaw hurts and digging his nails into his palms to try to restore a modicum of control. “ _What_ is that?” he asks, very stiffly, eyes closed tightly. 

“It’s Captain Zaraki. He must be fighting…” Ijyuin trails off before he can speculate as to who. But the answer is very evident. 

If it’s Yoruichi, things will be fine. If not…

Urahara finds he’s biting his lip beyond the point of pain. He tries to stop himself, but he’s weak as a kitten, unable even to stop shaking. 

But slowly, insidiously, he’s starting to sense something else. Another reiatsu beginning to press back against Zaraki’s. It’s solid and whole where Zaraki’s is splintered and sharp-edged. Warm – no, hot – where Zaraki’s is like dry ice against his skin. 

It’s gold-tinted. 

Kurosaki. 

The two reiatsus war with each other, Kurosaki’s growing steadily stronger. 

“The hell is that?” asks Ijyuin, sounding puzzled. 

_My discovery_ , thinks Urahara. 

He shouldn’t be proud. Fighting a captain is unspeakably stupid – is a death wish. But Kurosaki has always been too stubborn for his own good. And, incredibly, he’s holding his ground. The two reiatsus push back and forth until, suddenly, Zaraki’s flares and Kurosaki’s disappears. 

Urahara’s eyes snap open, staring blankly. _No._

“Was that…?” asks Ijyuin. Urahara doesn’t answer. 

Kurosaki has fallen. 

The strange thing is that he had almost begun to expect otherwise. Had felt just the slightest hint of belief that Kurosaki might actually win. Foolish. Ludicrous. 

And yet, Kurosaki seems to make a habit of defying the odds. And now… if he’s not dead, he will be soon. May even be imprisoned along with Urahara to await his fate. Gods, what a joke that will be. 

Beyond the walls of the Senzaikyu, Kurosaki’s golden reiatsu suddenly blazes up, like a match to powder keg. Urahara is rocked by the strength of his power. 

This time, it’s Zaraki’s that disappears. Then, slowly, like a gas lamp being turned down, Kurosaki’s fades. 

“Captain…”

“Find out what happened,” snaps Urahara. 

“Yes, sir.”

  
***

Ijyuin has rustled up a replacement and gone to find out what happened in the battle between Zaraki and Kurosaki. Urahara sits by the door, waiting for news.

What he doesn’t expect is the sound from outside of the guard being knocked out. And then, amazingly, the sound of the door opening. 

Urahara stands, expecting to see Yoruichi. What he sees, instead, is Yamada Hanatarou and a large, heavy man he doesn’t know. 

“You must be Geta-Boushi,” says the stranger, looking him up and down critically. Urahara blinks. 

“Yes?” he says, bemused. 

“Then get your ass in gear. We’re out of here.”

“And you are?” asks Urahara politely, not moving. 

“Ichigo sent me. The name’s Ganju. Now move it!” He reaches in and grabs Urahara’s wrist, yanking him over the threshold of the Senzaikyu and out into the daylight. 

It’s been over a week since he was last outside. The sunlight is dazzling, the white flags lining the bridge blinding. 

He reaches up to shade his eyes, and beyond Ganju’s shoulder sees Yamada waving shyly.

And, right behind him, Kuchiki Byakuka.

The captain appears out of thin air, stepping serenely out of shunpo without a hair out of place. 

“Keys,” says Urahara, urgently. “For the chains – where are the keys?”

Ganju looks at him blankly. And then, sensing the alarm in Urahara’s voice, turns to look behind him. 

Kuchiki puts a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Sorry, Urahara. But you’re not leaving here.”


	11. Break the Glass

Kuchiki’s expression is somewhere between bored and unimpressed. Honestly, Urahara doesn’t blame him. Shackled hand and foot with sekkiseki, he’s no threat to the younger man – he wouldn’t be a threat to a first-year Academy student. And from the complete absence of reiatsu his two supposed rescuers are exhibiting, he can’t imagine they’re any danger either. 

“Surrender yourself,” orders Kuchiki. 

“And if I don’t?” asks Urahara blithely. Because, hell, he’s never been one to have things the easy way. 

Kuchiki takes a step forward, hand tightening on his zanpaku-to’s grip. “Then I will make you.”

His large would-be rescuer – Ganju – steps in front of him. He’s shaking like an aspen, his hand on the short cleaver sheathed at his back. “I’ll fight him. You run,” he mutters.

Urahara blinks. There is nothing about this man that suggests he could even make Kuchiki look twice at him. And yet here he is, throwing himself into the breach for Urahara.

He wonders what exactly it is about Kurosaki that evokes this kind of sacrifice. 

“Ganju-san,” he begins, and gets no further. 

Kuchiki, tired of the conversation, has drawn his sword. Ganju does as well – it’s not a zanpaku-to, but a common blade, no match for a Shinigami’s. Much less a captain’s.

It’s over almost before it’s begun. Kuchiki releases his blade’s shikai and it scatters on the wind, a thousand miniscule razors circling at his bidding like a storm of sakura petals. They tear into Ganju mercilessly, knocking him onto his face and inflicting dozens of bloody wounds. He doesn’t rise again.

“Now,” says Kuchiki, turning to Yamada and Urahara. The boy is staring, white-faced and wide-eyed, at his fallen friend. Urahara steps in front of him. 

“There’s no need for further violence,” he says peaceably, manacled wrists held out in front of him. He’s about to step back towards the darkness of the Senzaikyu when a familiar, honey-gold reiatsu washes over him. From overhead a figure descends using the Shihouin family glider. A figure with an enormous sword and a shock of bright orange hair. Urahara feels his heart jolt in his chest.

Kurosaki Ichigo lands lightly on the railing of the bridge, the glider’s tendrils retreating into the staff and the immense wing folding down to nothingness. 

His shihakusho is loose at the front, failing to hide the bloody bandages crossing his chest. His shoulders are rounded with pain, his face grey and lined. He’s in no condition to face another captain.

To Urahara’s surprise, he ignores both the shop-keeper and Kuchiki, and instead hops down beside Ganju. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he says quietly, then looks past Kuchiki at Yamada. “Oi, Hanatarou. Help him.”

“Kurosaki-san,” begins Urahara.

Kurosaki turns sharp eyes on him. “You just wait there,” he says, pulling his sword down heavily off his back. “I’ll come to you.”

The blade no longer has the same form as it did in Karakura. It’s in shikai form, Urahara realises, although Kurosaki has not called it. In such a short time, he must already have heard the zanpaku-to’s voice. 

It still won’t be enough to defeat Kuchiki Byakuya. Kurosaki’s only chance of survival is escape. 

“Take your friend and go.” Urahara stares coldly at Kurosaki, channeling iciness he rarely displays. “Back to the human world where you belong.” _Back where you’ll be safe._

“He will not be doing that,” interrupts Kuchiki. Urahara turns to him, undeterred.

“If you let him go, I won’t waste my last words telling the Court of Kuchiki Rukia’s failure to report him – her failure to even notice that he had become a Shinigami. That could rate banishment to the Nest of Maggots, and I doubt such an inexperienced young woman would survive there for long.” The threat rolls smoothly off his tongue, his words silken. 

Before Kuchiki can respond Kurosaki barrels in with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. “I’m not going anywhere. And Rukia has nothing to do with this!” He shoots down Urahara’s one card – his last-ditch option, reluctantly spent – without any apparent worry or regret.

It would be maddening, but Urahara can see the sweat beading just below his hairline, can sense the way his reiatsu is flickering at the edges. He needs medical attention, badly. 

“I didn’t ask you to come for me. You have no place here, Kurosaki-san. You’re not wanted.” 

“Right now I don’t give a shit what you want,” snarls Kurosaki. “I won’t let them kill you for helping me.”

“ _Enough_.” Kuchiki steps towards Kurosaki, raising his blade. “This bickering is pointless.”

Kurosaki lunges forward, movements too slow, form full of holes. He’s telegraphing pain clearly, unable to fully extend. Kuchiki catches the strike on his blade and repels him harshly; Kurosaki slams into the bridge’s railing and gasps, arms pulling back in towards his sides. More blood soaks into the bandages around his chest.

Kuchiki raises his sword to release his shikai; Urahara braces himself for a doubtless ill-fated attack.

Like lightning descending, Yoruichi appears in a dark streak. She simultaneously lands a blow to Kurosaki’s stomach and seals Kuchiki’s blade with a reiryoku-infused binding. 

Kuchiki blinks. Kurosaki collapses.

Then Yoruichi is pulling Kurosaki up onto her shoulder. She throws a casual glance at Urahara. “Sorry Kisuke. But I’ve got my hands full.” She turns to Kuchiki. “Catch me if you can, Byakuya-bo.”

Then she and Kurosaki are gone. 

Kuchiki isn’t foolish enough to chase the Flash Goddess. Instead he turns to Urahara, pointing his sword at the shop keeper. “Back inside.”

  
***

As he was not the guard ignobly defeated by Ganju and Yamada, Ijyuin is permitted back on duty – which means Urahara once again has access to a steady stream of information.

Yoruichi and Kurosaki have, unsurprisingly, utterly disappeared. Urahara can guess where they’ve gone, but knowing doesn’t do him any good. He has no way to order Yoruichi back to the human world – and even if he did, he has equally no authority. She would laugh in his face. 

The murder of Aizen combined with the defeat of Zaraki and several of his division, as well as the recently-discovered defeat of Kurotsuchi and his vice-captain at Yoruichi’s hands, has sent Seireitei into a full-on panic. Everyone is jumping at shadows, while the remaining captains and vice-captains fight to restore some semblance of order. 

Urahara is still trying to come to some kind of conclusion around Aizen’s death. He still can’t believe the man could have been defeated by his former vice-captain – he equally struggles to see him outsmarted by any of his colleagues. Aizen was a schemer rivalling his own capabilities, but without the conscience to trip him up. His murder niggles at Urahara.

  
***

He’s sitting on the stair looking out the window when he hears a soft conversation outside the door. He looks up but doesn’t stand as the door is opened once more. Kuchiki Byakuya is standing there, flanked by a man in a captain’s haori that he doesn’t know, but whose identity he can guess based on Ijyuin’s description – Ichimaru Gin.

Urahara smiles. “My. Two visits in one day. What is the cause of this excess?”

Kuchiki holds up a piece of parchment. “There has been a further communication from Central 46. The date of your execution is to be moved up. Three days hence you will be escorted to the Soukyoku and there leave your life behind.”

Urahara raises his eyebrows theatrically. “Rather petty, isn’t it? For a mere escape attempt? Or did you put in a word after the threat to Rukia?” 

“Central 46 is not subject to outside interference.”

“If you believe _that_ Kuchiki-san, you haven’t been around long enough. Trust me – there are those who have its ear.”

Or were. He’s still forgetting Aizen’s absence. He doesn’t know why he can’t just accept that the bastard’s dead. 

Just like he will be, soon.

  
***

Urahara wakes up in the middle of the night and, by the light of the moon, it suddenly all makes sense. Aizen’s showing off his bankai, Central 46’s relentless push to have Urahara executed in the showiest manner possible, Aizen’s supposed death.

It’s all a fake. All of it. Aizen is pulling a smoke-and-mirrors show on a grand scale, using Seireitei as his audience. 

The bastard isn’t dead. And he’s gunning for Urahara.

He knows, after all, what it was Urahara took with him back to the human world. And he wants it.

  
***

It’s a shame, Urahara thinks, that the entirety of his life up to this point has been spent being decidedly less than serious. Because this is a break-the-glass, pull the ‘chute moment. The ride has been fun, but the world is suddenly on fire and it’s time to get serious. Time to speak truth to power, and damn the consequences.

Only, there’s no power to speak to. Central 46 is under Aizen’s thumb and they call the shots. Captain-Commander Yamamoto would never go against their bidding, and few of the captains will risk crossing him. Urahara may have some new last words to speak in the shadow of the Soukyoku, but he doubts they will cut much ice. And really, the accusations sound like a madman’s. _A dead man is manipulating Central 46 to steal my invention._

He feels suddenly he hasn’t given Aizen’s genius the credit it was due. His plan is masterful. 

Urahara leans his head back against the cold stone and closes his eyes. Praising his enemy will get him nowhere. And time is running out. 

Outside the window, the sun is coming up.

  
***

“What if they don’t come for you?” asks Ijyuin the next day, his last full day before being marched to his doom.

 _What if they do?_ thinks Urahara. Soul Society let him go once; he doubts they will be so lenient the second time. Especially after the chaos that’s resulted. The upper echelon can’t let that go without someone to punish. And he knows who it will be.

“I knew what I committing to when I surrendered myself,” replies Urahara softly. “My intention has not changed.”

There’s still hope that if Yoruichi and Kurosaki fail, they may make it back to the human world unscathed. Hope that Ukitake and Shunsui might come through for him. 

How much hope there is that either Yoruichi or Kurosaki will see reason, he can’t comment on. If Yoruichi knew all that was at stake, she might make the logical decision and cut her losses. But cutting her loses has never been her style. Not where he’s concerned. 

The burden of her friendship is suddenly overwhelming.

“There’s still time,” offers Ijyuin, breaking into his thoughts.

Urahara looks out the window; the sun is already high in the sky.

There is time left. But not much.


	12. Fire

He dreams of fire. 

He’s sitting alone in the wilderness at night, shadowy trees looming overhead and the stars shining in the firmament above. His seat is a fallen log, his geta resting on bare earth. There’s a thick scent in the air of cedar and smoke. 

The fire is a bright honey-gold, flickering and crackling in the darkness. His haori is thrown back in the heat of the blaze, his hands raised to bask in the warmth.

He feels at peace. Here and now everything is right in the world, his mind relieved of any cares or concerns. The fire laps up at the dark sky, its snapping and shivering companionable. He is amazed by its liveliness, by the infinite variation in its hue and shape. By the way the fire caresses the logs at its base. He wonders what it feels like to be so touched, to be tied to something so beautiful.

He’s still wondering when the sky opens up and a black rain pours down, drowning the flames. They die down to smoking cinders, the suddenly soaked wood shrieking breathlessly. Urahara dives forward to protect the last of the burning embers from the rain, and tumbles into blackness. 

He wakes lying on cold stone, feeling incredibly alone.

He wonders at it, at the frigid loneliness pouring through him. He’s always been solitary, always self-reliant – partially by choice, partially by nature. It’s only logical, by extension, that he should die alone.

So why is it he feels so shattered?

  
***

He stands when he hears the footsteps outside. The door opens to reveal Ijyuin at the head of a phalanx of guards. Just behind his left shoulder is Kuchiki, clearly here to make sure no second escape is attempted.

Urahara submits to the red restraining strap once more, and like a dog on a leash is marched out of the Senzaikyu into the daylight. In the distance, the Soukyoku is gleaming like mercury, magnificent against the rising sun. 

It will soon grow much brighter.

  
***

It’s a poor turn-out, he sees as he’s marched to the execution block. Yamamoto and Sasakibe are there, of course, as is Sui-Feng and her massive second. The Third is mysteriously absent; there’s nothing mysterious in the Fifth’s non-attendance. Unohana and her vice-captain, and Kuchiki and his red-haired vice-captain are there, and after that it mostly peters out.

Ukitake and Shunsui might have had the decency to turn up, if they weren’t going to lend a hand, he thinks cynically. 

He’s allowed to stop and turn under the huge wooden scaffold that will serve as execution block. Yamamoto strides up, stately and serene as always. He appears unaffected by the presence of his supposedly-treasonous subordinate, here to face his death. 

“Do you have anything to say?” Yamamoto asks gravely, leaning on his sealed sword. 

Urahara crosses his wrists before him and looks straight ahead. “Right now in Seireitei there is a man planning such breaches of Soul Society’s laws that my own humble efforts pale in comparison. He is not acting alone, and he is not without support at the highest level. He has had space and time and funding to work at his project in secret over decades – and what his ultimate plan is even I can’t guess. I can only know that he has already broken laws and betrayed trusts, and that he will continue to do so. The name of the traitor in your midst is Aizen Sousuke, and –”

His voice is drowned out by the protests and dismay of those present. There are shouts of _Silence!_ and _Traitor!_

“Aizen Sousuke is dead,” proclaims Yamamoto. 

“No,” replies Urahara levelly, “he isn’t. And before this day is done, I expect I’ll be proven right.”

If Aizen believes him to be harbouring the Hougyoku, if he has gone to all this effort to obtain it, he can hardly miss out on Urahara’s execution. 

Yamamoto shifts slightly. “What you say is tantamount to treason.”

Urahara stares straight back at him. “I’ve never been afraid to speak the truth. Have you been afraid to hear it?” 

“Unforgivable,” interrupts Sasakibe, supremely affronted. “Apologize immediately for your rudeness.”

“I was asked for my last words. Am I not permitted honesty?”

“You are,” agrees Yamamoto. “You have said your piece. Your words will be considered.”

_In other words_ , thinks Urahara, _kiss my ass._

He’s escorted to stand directly beneath the scaffold. 

“Release the Soukyoku,” orders Yamamoto. The Onmitsukido release the immense ropes binding the Soukyoku in place, freeing it for the task that is to come. 

The blocks that will raise him to his death rise from the ground; only when his arms are trapped by their field are the manacles released from his wrists and ankles; they clatter to the ground to pool at his feet. 

The day is bright and warm, but dressed in only his white yukata, Urahara feels cold as he’s raised up above the ranking members of the Gotei 13. He can see for miles, the horizon crisp and clear in the distance. Can see all of Seireitei and Rukongai beyond it. One last glimpse at the world he abandoned – or the world that abandoned him. 

He feels a sudden surge of regret, and quashes it. Regret is for the living – for prompting apologies and amendments and reconciliation. He’s beyond all those things, now. It’s a terribly bitter freedom. 

Against the blue sky, the Soukyoku’s blade shines. And then, without warning, the firestorm begins. It rises from the bottom up, the blade transforming from a static weapon to a phoenix. The immense bird hovers, staring at him with golden eyes. Taking in the one it is to send into oblivion.

The phoenix flaps its enormous wings. 

Urahara closes his eyes. The sound of the flames burning closer is the last he’ll ever hear.

He’s reminded suddenly of his dream – of his sense of calm. 

He has no fear. 

The flames sear the very air, the sound like wind through ancient oaks. And then, all of a sudden, there’s a boom like thunder. And, inexplicably, the heat backs off.

Urahara opens his eyes. And stares.

Standing before him is Kurosaki Ichigo. Wearing the Shihouin flying cloak. Holding off Kiku-Ou with one hand, his blade slung over his back. His reiatsu flickering around him in a honey-gold wreath.

For once in his life, Urahara is speechless.

“Yo,” says Kurosaki. “I’ve come to pick up your sorry ass.”

_The fool actually came back_. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. After all, Kurosaki made it clear from the very start that he had a head harder than granite – and a heart better than gold. 

Behind him the huge firebird writhes impatiently, then backs off – preparing for a second attack.

“It won’t give up,” says Urahara. 

Kurosaki gives him a smile. “Neither will I.” He turns to face it, pulling his sword down off his back. There’s no trace of his injuries, no sign of pain in his movements. Clearly Yoruichi healed him in the three days of his absence. 

That had better not be all she did.

The phoenix lines up for its second attack, it and Kurosaki dodging towards each other to strike the first blow. 

Far below, two figures appear out of shunpo holding an immense shield and a coil of cord. 

Ukitake and Shunsui. _Finally._

Ukitake throws the cord into the air; it rises with unnatural strength and speed, looping over the phoenix’s neck and then back down again. The two captains hammer each end into the earth. Then, as the others in the crowd begin to wake to what’s happening in their midst, the two captains use their zanpaku-tos to rend the shield. 

Fire races up the thick cord. When it reaches Kiku-Ou, she explodes. Fire rains from the sky, the force of a million blades falling onto the Soukyoku hill. It wipes out the group of Onmitsukido officers, and sends the vice-captains scattering like chicks in a rainstorm. 

“Now then,” says Kurosaki, back-flipping effortlessly onto the execution scaffold above. 

“May I ask what you’re intending?” says Urahara, glancing up. 

“Simple. I’m breaking you the hell out of here.”

Urahara smiles. “My. Such determination. But it’s not me you should be worried about. Listen – Kurosaki-san – there’s something you need to know,” he says, thinking of Aizen and the Hougyoku. 

“Time for that later,” grunts Kurosaki. He spins his sword like a pin-wheel, gathering strength. And then, catching it, brings it down onto the cross-bar of the execution scaffold. 

Reiryoku blares outwards, brilliant, blinding. When Urahara can see again he’s once-more hovering above the earth – this time with Kurosaki holding him around the waist, the two of them hip to hip. The flying cloak can’t support their combined weight for long; Kurosaki side-steps over to the remaining piece of the scaffolding and lands there, releasing Urahara. 

“They won’t let us go,” Urahara points out, looking at the captains and vice-captains milling below. “Can you fight all of them?”

“If I have to,” replies Kurosaki resolutely. 

“I admire your courage, Kurosaki-san. But on this occasion, I think you may need some help.” He smiles, and affects to crack his knuckles. 

“You? You don’t have a sword.”

“I do not, in face, need one,” replies Urahara, just a little smugly. He’s without any restraints on his reiryoku for the first time in weeks, and it is a heady feeling. 

Down below the vice-captains of the First, Second and Fourth rush forward. Kurosaki jumps down and, with one blow each, knocks them back.

He really has come a long way since Urahara last saw him. 

Sui-Feng takes a step of shunpo and appears in the air beside Urahara. “Traitor,” she spits, sending a round-house kick at his head. He blocks it. 

“Am I really the one you want to fight?” he asks, calmly. 

“Who else?” 

“What about me, Sui-Feng.” Yoruichi steps out of shunpo beside them, looking cool and collected. Sui-Feng gapes. Urahara smiles. 

“You took your time,” he says. He’s not surprised by her arrival. She’s never once been late – not when it mattered.

“I was busy with your brat,” Yoruichi replies. “Be grateful I got him here at all.” 

He wishes he had his hat to tip over his eyes; his smile really is too revealing. 

“Do you have something to say to me, Sui-Feng?” asks Yoruichi. “If so, you’ll have to catch me.”

She disappears; the instant afterwards Sui-Feng follows. 

Down below, Kurosaki is squaring off against Kuchiki. Yamamoto has taken off in pursuit of his two traitorous captains, Ukitake and Shunsui. 

Leaving just Unohana and Kuchiki’s red-haired vice-captain. 

He knows Unohana will not attack unless pushed to it – unless everyone else falls and he attempts escape. He’ll tackle the vice-captain first. 

He leaps down from the scaffolding, landing smoothly in its shadow. The ground is hard and rough beneath his bare feet. 

The young Shinigami should be no match for him – and in other circumstances, he wouldn’t be. But Urahara’s reiryoku has been depleted to nothing for more than three weeks, and his utterly empty stomach is currently climbing his spine in its sudden starvation. He doesn’t have his usual strength or speed, although he does as always have his form to fall back on.

The vice-captain – Abarai Renji, he remembers from Ijyuin’s briefings – releases his sword into shikai, a long articulated blade. Urahara smiles. It’s work of a moment to step behind him, and only another sliver of a second to strike out at the man’s unprotected neck. 

Abarai’s sword bites outwards, extending to chase him with its hoe-like head. He’s fast enough to curtain Urahara’s attack, although not to avoid it all together. He staggers, feet digging rows in the soft earth. 

“By now, you must know who I am,” says Urahara, watching him. “I give you the chance to retreat.”

“Go to hell,” snarls the young man, snapping his sword downwards and preparing for a second attack.

Urahara nods politely. “Then I won’t hold back.”

It’s over a minute later, the red-head unconscious on the ground and Urahara stretching his shaky muscles. He turns to face Unohana. The diminutive woman is standing slightly to the side, hands held in front of her. She gives him a long, searching look, her black eyes like shimmering pools of ink. 

“We have something to talk about,” he says, and steps over to face her.


	13. Ichigo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick update; had the chapter ready so why not... :D

“I was telling the truth about Aizen,” he tells Unohana as she considers him, her expression calm as always. “He is influencing Central 46. And if he gets what he wants, he could do much worse than arrange for the death of one innocent shop-keeper.” 

“You suggest I should make you a gift of your freedom?” she asks, but he can see the amusement in her eyes. She is ancient, older than all the captains except from Yamamoto, and she has seen his kind of genius before. 

“I’m suggesting that you should pursue the true threat to Soul Society. After all, there’s still a captain here.” He gestures lazily to Kuchiki, currently engaged in a battle against Kurosaki. Unohana doesn’t follow his gesture, keeping her eyes on him. He has the sense that he’s under a microscope, every aspect of his appearance and character being considered. “Tell me that you’ve never suspected him, and I’ll drop my suggestion,” he adds.

Then, to his surprise, Unohana nods. “You may be correct. You always were unconventional, but honest. And I have had my doubts about Aizen…” her face darkens. “I will see to the wounded, as is my duty. And I will speak with Central 46.”

He steps aside and allows her past him to assess the unconscious Abarai. He instead turns his attention to Kurosaki.

The battle between Kurosaki and Kuchiki is heating up. Both are using shikai, Kurosaki moving at near-shunpo speeds to avoid Kuchiki’s swirling storm of petal-like razors. Kuchiki is working hard to block Kurosaki’s attacks, directing the swarm of blades here and there while Kurosaki dodges back and forth like a hare. 

There is only one real question on the table: can Kurosaki match Kuchiki’s bankai?

The two dance around the question for a few minutes longer, Urahara watching from the sidelines. In the background, Unohana collects the wounded and flies off with them. 

Kuchiki is the first to run out of patience for their game of cat-and-mouse. He releases his bankai by reforming his blade and then letting it fall into the ground, where it is smoothly absorbed. In its place immense blades rise in a line, trapping Kurosaki in the middle of a long column of steel. He seems unperturbed, watching Kuchiki carefully, his own blade at the ready.

One by one, the huge standing blades disintegrate into shards, directed by Kuchiki’s will. Kurosaki dodges the first attack, and nearly falls to the second.

“Looks like I’m going to have to get serious,” he says, wiping his forehead. And then, intensely: “Bankai.”

Urahara watches, captivated, as Kurosaki’s reiatsu explodes outwards. It throws earth and dust into the air, obscuring Kurosaki’s figure. When it has settled, he’s still standing there, only now the gi of his shihakusho has taken on an almost western look and his blade is a narrow, black matte katana. 

There is no other perceptible change. 

Urahara raises his eyebrows. It’s unconventional. But then, so is Kurosaki – immensely so. He watches Kuchiki mock the bankai and sees Kurosaki bristle. And then dodge forward, at a speed he hasn’t before come close to matching. Kuchiki takes a hurried step backwards and whips his multitude of blades around to chase Kurosaki. 

For several minutes they dodge back and forth, Kurosaki coming closer and closer to landing a hit on Kuchiki. The first time he does, the captain looks shocked. The second time, he looks angry. 

But this is, after all, Kurosaki’s first time using bankai in a battle – perhaps his first time using it for this length of time at all. He’s already tiring, his stamina spent. After the first few blows to Kuchiki, he begins to slow. And Kuchiki begins to press him harder and harder, his blades beginning to tear into Kurosaki’s clothes – then his skin. 

“I’m not getting faster,” Kuchiki tells the panting Kurosaki, “you’re getting slower.”

It has the effect of a final blow. Kurosaki collapses to his knees, and Urahara knows with the pressure Kuchiki’s putting on him and the intense drain of bankai, he won’t be able to stand again without reprieve.

An instant later, Urahara is between them. “Did you forget me, Kuchiki-san?” he asks. Kuchiki gives him an unamused look.

“This isn’t your fight.”

“With my life at stake? I think you’re wrong,” replies Urahara. 

“Then I will be the one to cut you down.” Kuchiki pulls the pink-tinted razors around in a swirling maelstrom, and throws it at Urahara. 

He hasn’t fought someone of captain-level in decades, and even then he had a full store of reiryoku. As it is he leaps into a series of blinding twists and flips, coming closer and closer to Kuchiki as he grows to understand the pattern of the blades. 

All captains can fight with hakuda, although with varying degrees of proficiency. From Kuchiki’s long-range style and pristine manner, he intuits that the Sixth Division captain does not prefer hand-to-hand combat. Urahara drives inwards, dodging past a swirl of false-sakura, and lands a blow on Kuchiki’s chin that sends him staggering backwards. He follows it up with a tightly-executed hado: “Hado 88: Hiryuu Gekizoku Shinten Raihou.”

Lightning flies outwards, searing past Kuchiki’s guard and cutting into his haori and his flesh below. Blood stains his clothes crimson. It trickles down to spot on the ground. 

He can feel the toll the encounter has taken on him, the use of his still-scanty reiryoku on such a high-level hado making him dizzy. He can’t keep up a fight at this level for long. But to one side, Kurosaki is standing. 

“No one asked you to butt in, Geta-Boushi,” he says, sweeping his sword to the side and chasing away the dust gathered on him. “I’m the one supposed to be rescuing _you_.”

He steps forward at nearly his former speed. Kuchiki tries to pull up his defense in time, and fails. Kurosaki’s blade strikes him down, pummelling him into the ground. Around him, his bankai begins to shatter, blade reforming beside his hand. 

“Told you I didn’t need help,” pants Kurosaki. He pulls himself together, straightening and resting his sword on his shoulder. “Now. What were you going to tell me?”

Urahara opens his mouth to reply, and senses movement from behind him.

“Yes, Urahara-san. What _were_ you going to tell him?” asks Aizen Sousuke.

  
***

He learns later of the communication from Unohana, the rapid relay of information surrounding Aizen’s crimes – the falsification of his death, the slaughter of Central 46, the murderous attack on the captain of the Tenth and his own vice-captain.

At the time, he receives none of this. But he is not surprised by Aizen’s appearance. Nor, really, by that of his two lackeys – captains Ichimaru and Kaname. 

He can’t fight all three. Realistically, after the effort he expended on Kuchiki, he probably can’t fight one for long. And Kurosaki is exhausted. 

“I’m waiting,” says Aizen, smiling at him. “Or would you rather _I_ tell him?”

“Tell me what?” demands Kurosaki, looking in confusion to the newly-appeared figures in white.

“That Urahara-san is not the philanthropist he pretends to be,” purrs Aizen. “That his motives concerning you were less than selfless. And that those who pretend to be angels are often devils.”

“No one could accuse me of angelic behaviour,” says Urahara. “Or are you referring to yourself?”

“You know, I thought it would be amusing to mislead everyone. Play the well-loved captain. Be adored by those who would have despised me, had they known my true self. In fact, it was _boring_. I began to grow impatient waiting for you to slip up. But then this boy came along, and…” Aizen smiles again. “You practically fell over yourself to turn him into a Shinigami. That could only mean one thing.” 

He turns to Kurosaki, and Urahara realises suddenly that he made a key mistake. Aizen doesn’t think he has the Hougyoku – it wasn’t his execution the man was waiting for. It was Kurosaki’s arrival. 

“Do you know what a gigai is, Kurosaki-kun?”

Kurosaki looks to Urahara briefly for guidance, then back at Aizen without replying.

“It’s a false body which Shinigami can occupy in the human world. It allows them to interact with humans. Urahara-san is an inventor – he invented a new kind of gigai. One that uses a Shinigami’s reiatsu to slowly turn them into a human. When you were strong enough, he was going to offer it to you. To turn you back into a human.”

_Fuck._

“Why would he do that?” asks Kurosaki, suspiciously. 

“Because Urahara-san has a secret. Many years ago, he invented something terrible – and amazing. A tiny thing which can turn hollows into Shinigami – and Shinigami into hollows.”

Kurosaki looks to Urahara, who nods slowly, throat tasting of bile.

“It’s true. I hoped at the time to cure hollows. What I didn’t realise was its alternate use. A use Aizen discovered, and experimented with. On his own colleagues.”

Aizen looks pleased by the accusation. “Guilty as he was, Urahara-san hoped to destroy the evidence. Only he found he couldn’t – his invention could not be destroyed. So he decided to hide it. That’s where you come in, Kurosaki-san.” Aizen looks to him and smiles. “The best place to hide it was in a soul. Your soul. When you became human again, it would never be found.”

Kurosaki stares. “That’s _ridiculous_ ,” he says, after a minute. And then, eyes narrowed, “Why should I trust a liar and a murderer?”

“Why should you trust Urahara Kisuke?” replies Aizen calmly. 

_Why indeed,_ thinks Urahara. 

Kurosaki glares. “Because he showed me a new world. He opened my eyes to possibilities I had never known, and gave me the strength and skill to meet them head-on. He pushed me to be better than I imagined myself – better than I thought I could be.”

“And he did it all for his own gain,” finishes Aizen smoothly. “But if you don’t believe me, it’s easily proven.”

Urahara sees his sword-strike telegraphed from across the distance separating them. He can’t see Aizen’s blade – that must be part of the trick of it – but he knows he is about to land a fatal blow. And he knows Kurosaki, still new to zanjustu, can’t see it.

“Ichigo!” the word is ripped out of him by an emotion he can’t define, something ancient and boundless.

He moves without thought, spending the last of his reiatsu on a shunpo step so fast even Yoruichi would struggle to track it. Steps between Kurosaki – no, Ichigo – and Aizen with his back to the captain. 

For an instant he sees Ichigo’s eyes widen – sees a brief flash of panic/pain/horror there. 

Then Aizen’s blade rips open his back. 

Blood splatters onto Ichigo’s face, his eyes wide and round and disbelieving.

The pain is indescribable. His entire back is on fire, the immensity of it so great that it crushes him down; his legs give out and he collapses, blackness throbbing at the edges of his vision.

Ichigo catches him. Drops his sword like a fool to catch him and lower him to the ground as though he was something fragile and precious. 

As though he wasn’t the man who mislead him, manipulated him, _betrayed_ him. 

“Run,” says Urahara, tasting blood in his mouth. He can’t feel his legs. Can’t move his arms. Can barely see through the black haze clouding his vision. 

Ichigo looks stricken, kneeling with Urahara sheltered in his lap. 

Aizen appears behind his shoulder. Urahara tries to raise a hand, to fire even a low-level hado.

His arm doesn’t even twitch. 

Aizen’s hand is grey and stony – the Integration, Urahara recognizes dully. He tries to speak, but only produces a wet gurgle. 

Aizen puts his hand through Ichigo’s chest. The Hougyoku hovers there in the midst of his soul, pale and perfect. Aizen snatches it and withdraws his hand. “It’s so nice to be proven right,” he says, in a self-satisfied tone. 

There are people shouting now, movement on the edges of his vision. But things are growing blacker and blacker. Ichigo’s shaking him, his mouth moving, but Urahara can’t hear his words. 

_I’m sorry_ , he wants to say. But he’s already missed his chance.

Blackness.


	14. A Dreamer and a Schemer

Clean sheets. Anti-septic. A floral fragrance. 

Urahara opens his eyes, knowing the impossible: he’s alive, and salted away in the Fourth. 

“Well,” says a familiar voice. “About time.”

He’s lying on his front in bed, a host of IVs feeding into his left hand and arm. He looks back over his shoulder to spot Yoruichi – midnight-black, feline Yoruichi – lying on the covers beside his right hip. Her ears are pricked up, her eyes sharp. 

“ _What_ has happened?” he asks, looking first at her, then around the room. It’s a small single, with a window overlooking a garden and a bedside table hosting a large floral arrangement. Oddly, there are no guards present. 

“You did something stupid. Again.” Yoruichi sounds, if anything, amused. “Risking your life for Ichigo – I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“My surrendering myself to Kuchiki-san wasn’t enough of a hint?” he asks, raising a hand to scratch an itch under his chin. His back feels cold and numb. A sudden wave of panic rolls through him and he twitches his toes – and feels the cover shift. He lets out a soft, relieved breath. 

“That was to save the Hougyoku, and we both know it. Throwing yourself in front of Ichigo like some kind of martyr – that was entirely new. You would never have done it when you were a captain,” she adds; he can’t tell whether with approval or condemnation. 

“What can I say? I’ve grown foolish in my old age.” He closes his eyes and rests his head on his pillow. 

He feels exhausted. It’s a curiously cold, empty feeling, a sense of insubstantiality. As though his body were made of mist, and barely holding its shape together. 

“What happened?” he asks quietly, without looking up. 

Yoruichi shifts, tail twitching against his hip. “I arrived with Sui-Feng just as you fainted. Aizen was gloating about having finally struck you down once and for all. We all assumed you were dead. Ichigo’s reiatsu _exploded_. I’ve never seen anything like it – the intensity; the fury. He still wasn’t a match for Aizen, but he pushed him. Sui-Feng and I and even Kuchiki joined in. Juushirou and Kyouraku arrived to take care of Ichimaru, and some lumbering behemoth took on the blind captain of the ninth.”

“And?”

“Ichimaru and the other are in custody. Aizen is dead.”

Urahara opens his eyes. 

“Ichigo struck the final blow,” she adds, matter-of-factly. 

“Where is he?”

“Recovering from his own injuries – he had many. And, frankly, moping.”

“He’s never killed before,” says Urahara. “And I –” 

“Oh, enough with your guilt, Kisuke,” she snaps, irritated. “It was unbearable a century ago, and it still is. You’re a dreamer, and a schemer – you always will be. Ichigo has his own motives – that doesn’t mean the two of you can’t align. And it doesn’t turn you into the villain and him the victim. Things aren’t so black and white. Stop sulking and apologize – and move on.”

Urahara smiles. “My. I had forgotten how you like to lecture me.”

She sniffs. “Someone has to. Otherwise your head just keeps getting bigger and bigger – it would be pumpkin-sized by now, if not for me letting all the hot air out.”

“Will he see me?” he asks after the levity of the moment has past, his smile fading. 

“He already tried – you were unconscious. He’ll be back.”

Urahara’s eyes slant to the large bouquet of flowers. “He didn’t…?”

Yoruichi crinkles her eyes in amusement – the closest a cat comes to a bawdy grin. “Those,” she says, with immense satisfaction, “are from Kyouraku. ‘From one beautiful man to another.’”

Urahara buries his head in the pillow.

  
***

Unohana pads quietly in sometime later – he’s still fading in and out of consciousness, a combination of the drugs they’re pumping into him and his own fragile condition, and can’t accurately pin-point the time of her visit.

“You’re healing nicely, Urahara-san,” she tells him, inspecting his back with clinical competence. He can only feel a faint pressure – no sense of warmth from her fingers, or pain from the enormous wound. “You may lose some nerve perception in your back, but there will be no permanent damage to your spine. A scar is, unfortunately, certain.”

“I hope I’m not too vain, Captain Unohana,” he returns politely. “It’s really no matter.” He looks out the window at the quiet garden beyond, verdant moss growing on ancient stones. “Am I still to be executed, do you know?” 

“Officially, no pronouncement has been made,” says Unohana, gently. “Unofficially, the remaining captains would not stand for it. You and Kurosaki-san brought to light the traitors in our midst; your execution was a false sentence to begin with. It will not be repeated.” He can hear the threat in her voice, and knows he can trust her. 

“I hope your vice-captain wasn’t seriously injured,” he says, thinking to Ichigo’s initial attack under the shadow of the execution scaffold. 

“She was not. It will be a story she can tell; she, too, is not vain.” Unohana smiles, soft as a blooming flower. 

Out in the hallway, someone’s getting rowdy. Urahara understands that some of Ichigo’s early casualties from the Eleventh are a few doors down. Unohana sighs. “Please excuse me.”

Lying on his front, he can’t nod graciously. “Thank you,” he says instead. She drifts out.

  
***

He’s just been allowed to turn over onto his back (but not to sit up) when Yamamoto pays a visit with his vice-captain, the latter with his arm in a sling.

Urahara’s been an independent businessman for long enough that he doesn’t attempt to rise; he was a citizen of Soul Society for long enough before that that he feels guilty about it. 

“Urahara Kisuke-san,” says Yamamoto, considering him with half-open eyes. “I had not thought to see you again after your escape to the human world. I might even say that I wished not to see you again.”

“I can be very inconvenient,” agrees Urahara. 

“Indeed. The charges made against you at the time still stand. However, given your role in the unmasking of the conspiracy in our midst, they will not be acted upon. You will be free to return to your further life.”

_In other words_ , thinks Urahara, _thanks very much and don’t let the door hit you on the way out._

“And my companions?” he asks.

Yamamoto waves an unconcerned hand. “Likewise. In fact, we are minded to bestow an honour on Kurosaki Ichigo.”

“Oh yes?” says Urahara, who has seen enough honours from Soul Society to be suspicious of them.

“He may continue acting as Shinigami within his home town. He will be granted the status of substitute Shinigami.”

Under the circumstances, it’s probably the best that could be hoped for. It is also not very surprising. Ichigo took down a conspiracy that destroyed the entirety of the governing body of Seireitei and eluded discovery by the Gotei 13. He also, not unimportantly, defeated three captains in the process. They’re not in a position to spite him. 

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” he says dryly. He’s damned if he’ll show gratitude to Yamamoto. 

“You never were very politically astute, Urahara-san,” says the Captain-Commander, apparently reading his thoughts. 

“No,” replies Urahara. “Just a good judge of character.”

Sasakibe fumes at his rudeness, but Yamamoto doesn’t appear insulted in the least. 

“Perhaps we could have used more captains like you,” he says, coming shockingly close admitting a mistake. “Farewell, Urahara-san.” He turns and shuffles out, Sasakibe shooting Urahara one last scandalized look before following. 

Urahara lies back and tries to reflect on the conversation, to read beneath Yamamoto’s words to his intentions. But he’s still tired, and drugged, and eventually he nods off instead.

  
***

“I shouldn’t be here,” says a familiar voice, nearby. “I’ll come back later.”

“Nonsense. He’s slept enough,” replies a rough, gravelly tone. “Kisuke! It’s about time you woke up.” He feels a sudden pressure on his abdomen. 

He opens his eyes. Yoruichi is standing with her front paws on his chest, prodding at him.

Behind her, lingering near the chair at his bedside, is Ichigo.

The boy looks unnaturally pale, his hair vivid in the soft light of the sickroom. He has flashes of white bandage at his throat and peeking out from under his shihakusho, pointed reminders of his recent battles. He looks drained – not just physically, but emotionally. 

Urahara can’t remember the first man he killed; such was the lingering effect of the Onmitsukido. But he does remember the nightmares. The faceless bodies, the stench of blood, the cold knowledge that he was judge and executioner rolled into one neat package and that his dirty actions allowed his superiors clean hands. 

He sits up. He probably shouldn’t, but his back still feels like one long patch of numbness, and he’s hardly dizzy at all when he reaches full sitting height. 

“By now, you must have heard a lot about me,” he says, slowly. Ichigo stands awkwardly, one hand on the back of the chair. “I can only imagine all of it is true. Certainly, Aizen’s accusations all were.”

He realises suddenly that Yoruichi has snuck out, leaving the two of them alone.

“I know,” says Ichigo. “You wanted to make me human again. To hide the Hougyoku.”

“Yes.” The single word cuts at his mouth like a razor; he’s almost surprised not to taste blood. 

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Anger? Accusations? Betrayal?

Instead, Ichigo says, “I would have thanked you. If you had.”

Urahara stares. “ _Why?_ ”

“I told you before: I have people I want to protect. And maybe it’s not everyone, but it feels like the number is growing every day. My family. My friends. Yoruichi-san and Tessai-san and the kids. Rukia. Hanatarou and Ganju. I’ve even met people here – this little captain called Toushirou, he’s young and small and angry as hell that Aizen got him. And you,” he adds, raising his chin defiantly and staring down Urahara. “The Hougyoku could destroy all of that. It _should_ be locked away. If I could’ve hid it, I would’ve been glad.” He takes a breath, hand tensing on the back of the chair. “And if I could’ve protected you, I would’ve been gladder still.”

“I don’t deserve that,” he says, softly. 

Ichigo frowns. “Yoruichi told me all about you, you know. How you were a trained killer. How you became a captain, and couldn’t save your colleagues. How you came with her and Tessai to the human world in exile. About your frankly _massive_ guilt complex. I don’t want to be another straw on the camel’s back. I decide what I want to do – and who I want to protect. And you can just suck it, because you’re the one who gave me the strength to do it,” he adds, suddenly rounding the chair and thumping down in it. “So learn to live with it, Geta-Boushi. I’m sticking around.”

“Ichi – Kurosaki-san,” he begins.

“You can call me Ichigo,” interrupts Ichigo. “You already have, after all. So smile and say something ridiculous, and we can get back to normal.”

He could press for remorse, try to convince Ichigo that he’s a heartless bastard and should be steered clear of. 

But he feels like after an eternity travelling through a cold night, he’s suddenly found the company of a fire to keep him warm. And really, what else could he want? So:

“Do you know,” he enquires plaintively, picking at his infirmary sleeping yukata, “where I could get some proper _clothes?_ ”

Ichigo just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just the epilogue to go - that'll be up tomorrow.


	15. Epilogue

_Five Years Later_

“Sometimes,” grunts Ichigo, putting down a box full of magazines with a thud, “I think you just wanted me around for extra labour.”

The two of them are in the storeroom, Ichigo moving in their new products and Urahara unpacking them. He gives Ichigo a wounded look.

“Me? You know I would move those myself, only I threw my back out doing it last time – and Tessai’s downstairs fixing that crack in the ceiling and the children are both at school. What else could I do but enlist your wonderful support,” he says, smiling widely at the end of his speech. 

Ichigo rolls his eyes. 

“Fine. But I’m going out later to watch Karin’s soccer match.”

“Of course. She invited me as well. If Tessai’s done by then, of course I will attend.” Kurosaki Karin had, approximately 2 months after their return from Soul Society, encountered Ichigo in the street. Since then, she’s become a regular visitor at the Shoten. 

“If he’s not, just close the shop. You know there’re never any customers in the afternoon.” 

“There certainly will be none if we close,” replies Urahara, mock-scandalized. Ichigo picks up another box and moves it across the room for Urahara to unpack. 

They work in quiet harmony until all the goods are unpacked and the store restocked. Urahara watches Ichigo wipe his forehead with a soft smile. The boy has long since grown into a man, a handsome one at that. His adolescent intensity has mellowed, leaving him surprisingly well-adjusted. And surprisingly committed to remaining at the Shoten. With Urahara.

Urahara ghosts up behind him and lays a gentle hand on his shoulder. “If you’re done, perhaps we _could_ take a brief break,” he suggests, laying his other hand on Ichigo’s hip. 

“And here I thought you didn’t want to close the store,” replies Ichigo wryly, turning into his embrace. 

“Maybe just for fifteen minutes,” says Urahara, and leans in to kiss him. 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for their interest and support. I've had an amazingly good time writing this, and hopefully you'll see something more from me in this fandom!


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